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THE    ANNALS    OF    RURAL    BENGAL. 


BV  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 

[///  September. 

A  Comparative  Dictionary  of  the  Non-Aryan  Languages  of 
India  and  High  Asia,  ivitJi  a  Prcliininary  Dissertation, 
based  on  the  Hodgson  Lists  and  Vernacular  MSS., 
tvith  Contributions  from  Her  Majesty's  India  Office 
and  Foreign  Office,  the  Government  of  Bengal  and  the 
Royal  Asiatic  Society  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and 
from  European  and  American  scholars.  Being  a  Lexi- 
con of  One  Hundred  and  Forty-four  Tongues, 
illustrating  Turanian  Speech,  arranged  zvitJi  Prefaces 
and  Indices  in  English,  French,  German,  Russian,  and 
Latin. 


T  H  K 


Annals  of  Rural  Bengal 


BY 


W.    W.    HUNTER,    B.A.,    M.R.A.S. 


HON.  KEL.  ETHNOL.   SOC.  ; 
IF    THE    BENGAI.   CIVIL   SERVICE 


SECOND    EDITION. 


NEW    YORK 
LEYPOLDT    AND    HOLT 
1868     • 

S  8  3  3  8 


{Ail  Rights  Reserved.) 


VOLUME     I. 


r//E  ETHNICAL  FRONTIER   OF  LOWER  BENGAL 

WITH   THE  ANCIENT  PRINCIPALITIES   OF 

BEERBHOOM  AND  BISHENPORE. 


PREFACE 


TO  THE 


AUTHORISED    AMERICAN    EDITION. 


In  the  following  pages  I  have  endeavoured  to  delineate  the  inner 
life  of  those  distant  Asiatic  nations  over  whom  a  branch  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Family  has  been  called  to  rule.  Separated  from 
us  by  half  a  world,  their  vicissitudes,  social  necessities,  and 
religious  cravings  are  nevertheless  pregnant  with  interest  to  all 
who  would  contemplate  the  picturesque  yet  painful  stages, 
through  which  lies  man's  route  from  barbarism  to  civilisation 
and  assured  faith.  The  grand  problems  of  life  are  everywhere 
the  same.     It  is  in  the  solution  of  them  that  races  differ. 

But  though  the  People,  not  the  conquerors,  form  the  subject 
of  this  book,  frequent  traces  have  forced  themselves  to  the 
surface  of  that  calm  valour  and  patient  strength  of  purpose  by 
which,  while  one  handful  of  Englishmen  in  the  last  century  was 
subjugating  the  furthest  East,  another  was  rearing  a  Western 
Republic,  greater  in  all  the  permanent  essentials  of  greatness  than 
the  Empire  of  the  C?esars  or  the  Moguls. 

W.  ^V.  H. 

Oriental  Cluf,  London. 


DEDICATION. 


Broomiiiix  House, 
4//i  March  1868. 

My  Dear  Sir  Cecit,, 

The  forthcoming  State  Papers  on  the  popularity 
and  results  of  British  rule  in  India,  furnish  a  seasonable  oppor- 
tunity for  a  work  which  portrays  the  state  of  the  country  when  it 
])assed  under  our  care.  These  pages,  however,  have  little  to  say 
touching  the  governing  race.  My  business  is  with  the  people. 
To  no  one  could  such  a  volume  be  more  fitly  dedicated  than 
to  a  statesman  who,  by  the  development  of  municipal  institutions, 
l)y  popular  education,  and  by  an  enlightened  respect  for  native 
lights,  has  laboured  during  more  than  thirty  years  to  call  forth 
that  new  life  and  national  vigour  which  are  now  working  among 
llie  rural  multitudes  of  Bengal. 

I  therefore  inscribe  it  with  your  name. 

I  am, 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

W.  W.   HUNTER. 
To 

Sir  CECIL  BEADON,  K.C.S.I., 
Cirencester. 


CHRONOLOGY. 

1765.  The  Emperor  appoints  the  Company  to  the  Fiscal 
Administration  of  Bengal. 

1765-72.  The  Company  collects  the  revenues  by  native  agents. 

1772-86.  The  Company's  experimental  efforts  at  rural  admi- 
nistration by  means  of  English  officers. 

1786-90.  Lord  Cornwallis'  Provisional  System. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    T. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The  Absence  of  Rural  History, 
The  Materials  of  Rural  History,    . 
The  Functions  of  Rural  History, 
The  Sources  and  Scope  of  this  Work, 


3 

7 

9 

II 


CHAPTER    II. 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WHEN  IT  PASSED  UNDER 
BRITISH  RULE. 

The  Old  System  of  Government  under  Native  Princes, 

It  breaks  down,  and  the  Country  passes  under  British  I 

Permanent  Effects  of  the  Great  Famine  of  1769-70, 

The  Crops  of  1769, 

Distress  anticipated,  but  the  Land-Tax  raised. 

The  Famine  declares  itself. 

One-third  of  the  People  perish. 

The  Living  feed  upon  the  Dead,   . 

The  Desolation  of  Gour,    . 

The  December  Harvest  (1770)  restores  Plenty, 

But  to  a  silent  and  deserted  Province, 

Who  was  to  blame  ?  .  .  . 

Character  and  Scale  of  Relief  Measures, 

But  such  Measures  always  inadequate,     . 

The  Famine  intensified  by  Interference  with  Private  Enterprise 

Orissa  isolated  in  1866  ;  Bengal  isolated  in  1770, 

The  normal  Effect  of  Famine  in  Bengal, 

The  Specifics  for  Famine,  .  .  . 

The  Ruin  of  the  ancient  Aristocracy,  1770,  . 


>3 
15 
19 

20 

23 
24 

24 
26 

29 
31 
3' 
34 
36 
40 

43 
45 
49 
55 
56 


CONTENTS. 


The  Relations  of  Labour  and  Capital  transposed,  1776, 

From  1770  to  1789  one-third  of  Bengal  lies  waste, 

Severe  Revenue  Measures,  .... 

The  Western  Districts  made  over  to  Tigers  and  wild  Elephants, 

Rural  Industry  at  a  stand,  .... 

Bengal  in  the  Hands  of  Banditti,  .... 

The  *  Debateable  Land,'     ..... 

Bcerbhoom  in  1789  ;  the  Warding  of  the  Passes, 

Bishenpore  in  1789  ;  the  Hill-men  burst  through  the  Passes, 

The  ancient  Capital  sacked  by  Banditti,  . 

Estimate  of  Losses  caused  by  their  Devastations, 

Results  of  our  first  efforts  to  establish  Order, 

The  Western  Frontier  obtains  Rest:  its  condition  then  and  now, 


59 
61 

64 
6g 
70 

75 
76 

78 
81 

83 
84 
85 


CHAPTER    II L 

THE  ETHNICAL  ELEMENT.S  OF  THE  LOWLAND  POPULATION  OF 
BENGAL. 


The  Aiyans  and  Aborigines,  .... 

The  Struggle  for  Life  in  Ancient  India,    . 

The  Aryan  Race,    ...... 

Its  Line  of  March  through  Bengal, 

Aryan  Civilisation,  as  portrayed  by  Manu,  a  Local  System, 
A  rigid  fourfold  System  of  Caste  unknown  in  Lower  Bengal, 
The  Five  component  Parts  of  the  Population  of  Bengal, 
The  primitive  Children  of  the  Soil, 

The  Aryans  and  Aborigines  contrasted  ;  first,  as  to  Speech, 
Second,  as  to  Colour, 
Third,  as  to  Food,  . 
Fourth,  as  to  Religious  Conceptions, 
Fifth,  as  to  their  Belief  in  Immortality, 
Aryan  Funeral  Rites, 
The  Future  Life  described. 
Whence  these  Conceptions  ? 
Aboriginal  Funeral  Rites, 

Influence  of  the  Aborigines  on  the  Aryans  ;  first,  as  to  Speech 
Second,  as  to  Religion  ;  Demon-worship  and  Human  Sacrifices, 
Siva  and  the  Hindu  Village  Gods  borrowed  from  Aborigines,  129, 
Third,  Influence  of  the  Aborigines  on  the  Political  Destiny  and 
Character  of  the  I ndo- Aryans,  .... 

The  Future  of  the  Indian  Races,  .... 


88 
89 
90 
92 

97 
00 
07 
09 
12 
14 
15 
15 
17 
19 
21 
22 

24 
26 
27 
94 

36 
40 


CONTENTS. 


XI 


CHAPTER    IV. 


THE  ABORIGINAL  HILL-MEN  OF  DEERBHOOM. 


The  Black  Races  of  Bengal,  a  new  Field  of  Study, 

The  Santal  Tribes  of  Western  Bccrbhoom, 

Santal  Traditions  :  the  Creation,  the  Dispersion,  etc., 

Analogies  to  the  Mosaic  and  Ar)\an  Accounts,     . 

The  Legend  of  the  Creation  rather  a  Legend  of  the  Flood, 

Santal  Pre-historic  Reminiscences, 

Santal  Speech,        ..... 

The  present  Classification  of  Languages  unscientific, 

The  New  Lights,    ..... 

Santali  examined  by  the  New  Lights:  its  Inflections, 

Its  Place  among  Languages, 

The  Confluence  of  Languages  in  Bengal, 

A  Uniform  Method  for  studying  non-Aryan  Speech, 

Roots  common  to  Aryan  and  non-Aryan  Speech, 

Santali  Words  in  Prakrit, 

Prakrit  Words  in  Santali, 

General  Deductions  concerning  Santal  Speech, 

Santal  Religion,     .... 

Family  and  Village  Gods, 

Tribe  Gods,  .  .  "  . 

The  Race  God,        .... 

The  Santal  Trinity, 

Identity  of  the  Santal  Race  God  with  the  Hindu  Siva, 

The  Hindu   Family  Gods,  Village   Gods,   and   Siva,  borrowed 

from  the  Aborigines,    ..... 
Connection  between  the  Aboriginal  Rites  and  Buddhism, 
Connection  between    the  Aboriginal  Rites   and  Modern   Hin 

duism,  ...... 

Caste  unknown  among  the  Santals  ;  the  Seven  Clans, 
The  Six  Great  Ceremonies  in  a  Santal's  Life, 
Admission  into  the  Family  and  into  the  Clan, 
.A.dmission  into  the  Race,  . 

Union  of  his  own  Clan  with  another  ;  Weddings 
The  Santal  faithful  to  one  Wife  ;  Divorce, 
Dismission  from  the  Race  ;  Santal  Funeral  Rites, 
The  Santal's  Conceptions  of  a  Future  State, 
Reunion  of  the  Dead  with  the  Fathers,     . 
The  .Santal  as  a  Cultivator  and  as  a  Hunter, 
Santal  Sport,  .... 

Santal  Agriculture, 


141 

145 
147 
150 

151 
152 
156 
160 
161 
162 
165 
167 
169 

171 
176 
178 

•79 
181 
182 
184 
186 
187 
1S8 

194 
195 

199 
200 
203 
203 
204 
205 
208 
208 
210 
210 
21 1 

213 
214 


CONTENTS. 


Santal  Hospitality  and  Courtesy,  . 

Santal  Village  Government, 

Frankness  and  Easy  Decorum   of  the   Santal  Women 

Dance,  ..... 

The  Santal's  Aversion  to  Strangers, 
The  Santals  as  Depredators, 
As  Colonists  and  Day-labourers,   . 
They  migrate  Northwards  to  Rajmahal,   . 
They  furnish  the  Sinews  of  English  Enterprise  in  Beng 
Pressure  of  the  Population  in  the  East  and  the  West, 
The  Santal  Colonists  oppressed  by  Hindu  Traders, 
Our  Courts  fail  to  give  Redress,     . 
The  Santals,  in  Despair,  fly  to  the  Jungle, 
Hindu  Usury  develops  Slavery,     . 
English  Capital  renders  Freedom  profitable, 
The  Santals  grow  restless  ;  Warnings  and  Portents, 
They  collect  in  Armed  Masses,     . 
They  break  out  in  Rebellion, 
Martial  Law  delayed,  .... 

Personal  Narrative  of  the  Rebellion, 
The  Rebellion  at  its  Height, 
Martial  Law  declared ;  the  Rebellion  put  down. 
The  Wrongs  of  the  Santals  redressed. 
The  Railway  abolishes  Slavery, 
The  Hill-men  migrate  to  the  Tea  Districts, 
The  Perils  of  Ignorance,    .... 
Statistics  an  indispensable  Complement  of  Civilisation, 


their 


PACE 
2l6 

217 


218 
6-218 
219 
220 
222 
224 
226 
228 
230 
232 
232 

234 
236 
238 
240 

243 
247 
250 
251 

2C2 

255 
256 

259 
260 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE  COMPANY'S  FIRST  ATTEMPTS  AT  RURAL  ADMINISTRATION — 
1 765-1 790. 

Administration  by  '  Black  Collectors,'  1765,  .  .  .     261 

The  Supervisors,  1769-1772,  .....     263 

Hastings' Plan  ;  Period  of  Experiment  and  Error,  1772-1786,   .     266 
Lord  Cornwallis'  Provisional  System,  1 786-1 790,  .  .     267 

Cost  and  Character  of  Rural  Administration,  1788  and  1864,     .     269 
The  Land-Tax  and  Excise  before  1793,    .  .  .  .271 

Ancient  Intemperance  and  present  Sobriety  of  the  Bengali,       .     275 
The  Temple-Tax,  its  History,  and  how  levied,      .  .  .     279 

The  District  Government  Bank,    .....     2S7 
The  Government  Bank  stops  Payment,  1790,       .  .  .     289 

The  Guarding  of  Treasure,  .  .  ,  .  .291 


CONTENTS. 


Xlll 


State  of  the  Rural  Currency, 

Variety  of  Coins  ;  Inadequacy  of  the  Coinage, 

The  Mussulman  System  of  a  Single  Circulating  Medium 

The  ideal  Standard  of  Value, 

The  Company's  first  Currency  Reform,  1766, 

The  Gold  Coinage  of  1766,  its  Failure, 

Permanent  Drain  on  the  Currency  of  Bengal, 

Currency  Crisis,  1769, 

Gold  Coinage  of  1769,  its  Failure, 

History  of  the  Currency,  1769-1789, 

Currency  Reforms  of  1790, 

Currency  Crisis  of  1790-91, 

Final  Triumph  of  the  Reforms,  1794, 

The  Frontier  and  Fiscal  Police  before  1792, 

The  Rural  Criminal  Administration, 

A  Regular  Police  formed,  1792,     . 

The  Village  Watch,  its  inherent  Defects,  . 

Mussulman  Jail  Discipline, 

The  Rural  Civil  Courts,  1790  and  1864,    . 

Natural  Sources  of  Excessive  Litigation  in  Bengal, 

The  Character  of  Civil  Justice  before  1792, 

The  recognised  Functions  of  the  Company,  1765-179 


fAGB 
293 
295 

3oR 
300 
301 
302 
305 
307 
308 
309 
313 
317 
321 

323 
328 

331 

333 
337 
339 
341 
344 
347 


CHAPTER    VI. 


THE  COMPANY  AS  A  RURAL  MANUFACTURER. 

The  District  '  Investment,*             .....  350 

Little  Centres  of  Rural  Industry  form,       .  .  .  •35' 

The  Commercial  Resident  as  a  Labour-employer,            .             .  353 

As  Magistrate  and  Judge,  ......  355 

As  a  Private  Speculator,     ......  356 

The  '  Adventurer,'  Mr.  Frushard,  .....  358 

His  Misfortunes  and  Contests  with  the  Collector,             .             .  360 

His  ultimate  Triumph,        ......  362 

'Adventurers'  and  *  Interlopers,'  their  Legal  Status,        .             .  364. 

English  Enterprise  in  Rural  Bengal,  1789  and  1S66,        .             .  365 
The   Company   as   a    Rural    Administrator  and    Manufacturer, 

1765-1790,             .             .             .             .             .             .             .  l(^'i 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

CHAT'  T  E  R     VII. 
CONCLUSION. 

PAGE 

The  gradual  Growth  of  the  Company's  Rural  Government,         .  369 

The  true  Function  of  the  Indian  Historian,  .  .  .  371 

The  Rights  of  the  People  still  unascertained,        .  .  .  372 

Analogy  of  the  Muhammadan  Tenures  in  Turkey  to  those  in 

Bengal,     ........  374 

Conclusion,  .......  375 


APPENDIX. 

"'^A.  Bengal  in  1772,  portrayed  by  Warren  Hastings,         .  .     379 

^— »B.   The  Great  Famine  of  1770,  described  by  Eye-witnesses,       .     399 

C.  The  Cook's  Chronicle  of  Beerbhoom,  . 

D.  The  Pandit's  Chronicle  of  Beerbhoom, 

E.  The  Pandit's  Chronicle  of  Bishenpore, 

F.  The  Family  Book  of  the  Princes  of  Beerbhoom, 

G.  Santal  Traditions,  ..... 
H.  A  Skeleton  Santali  Grammar, 
I.     Santal  Festivals,           ..... 

^K.   A  few  Official  Papers  on  the  Santal  Insurrection, 
----L.    Revenue  and  Cost  of  District   Administration   before   the 
Permanent  Settlement,  .... 

M.  Present  Revenue  and  Cost  of  District  Administration, 
N.   List  of  Rupees,  1794,     ..... 
O.    The  Coins  in  Use  at  Six  Indian  Ports,  1763, 


422 
426 
439 
447 
450 

454 
463 
465 


470 
471 
472 

473 


To  facilitate  reference  certain  letters  are  appended  to  quotations 
from  manuscripts  indicating  where  the  originals  may  be  found.  The 
following  are  the  contractions  used  :  — 


I.  O.  R. 

C.  O.  R. 

B.  R.  R. 

B.  J.  R. 

B,  D.  A. 

Bn.  R. 

Bh.  R. 

Be.  D.A. 

I.  O.  L. 
O.  C.  . 


MS.  Records  (English),  in  the  India  Office,  White- 
hall. 

MS.  Records  (English  and  Persian),  in  the  Calcutta 
Offices. 

MS.  Revenue  Records  (English  and  Persian),  in  the 
Beerbhoom  Offices. 

MS.  Judicial  Records  (English,  Persian,  and  Ben- 
gali), in  the  Beerbhoom  Courts. 

MS.  Domestic  Archives  (Persian  and  Bengali)  of 
the  Rajahs,  and  other  families,  in  Beerbhoom. 

MS.  Records  (English  and  Persian),  in  the  Burd- 
wan  Courts  and  Offices. 

MS.  Records  (English  and  Bengali),  in  the  Ban- 
corah  Courts  and  Offices. 

MS.  Domestic  Archives  (Persian  and  Bengali)  of 
the  Rajah  of  Bishenpore. 

MSS.  and  rare  Tracts  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

Ootaparah  Collection,  being  a  series  of  rare  Tracts 
and  Newspapers  of  the  last  century,  belonging 
to  Babu  Jaikissen  Mukarji  of  Ootaparah,  in 
Bengal. 


THE 

ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 


CHAPTER    I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

/^N  the  frontier  of  Lower  Bengal,  fifty  miles 
^-^^  west  from  the  field  of  Plassy,  are  to  be 
traced  the  landmarks  of  two  ancient  kingdoms. 
They  lie  along  the  intermediate  country  between 
the  lofty  plateau  of  Central  India  and  the  valley 
of  the  Ganges.  The  primeval  force  which  had 
upheaved  the  interior  table-land  here  spent  itself 
on  fragmentary  ridges  and  long  wavy  downs.  On 
the  west  rise  the  mountains,  covered  to  the  summit 
with  masses  of  vegetation.  Gorgeous  creepers  first 
wreathe  with  flowers,  then  strangle  their  parent 
stems,  and  finally  bind  together  the  living  and  the 
dead  in  one  impenetrable  thicket.  Here  and  there 
an  isolated  hill  with  a  flat  top  stands  out  like  a 
fortress  on  the  plains.  From  ravines,  arched  over 
with  foliage,  turbid  cataracts  leap  down  upon  the 
valley,  there  to  unite  into  rivers  which,  at  one 
season  of  the  year,  pour  along  in  volumes  of  water, 

VOL.   1.  A 


2  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

half  a  mile  broad  and  twenty  feet  deep,  and  at 
another  season,  dwindle  to  silver  threads  amid  wide 
expanses  of  sand.  Over  the  uplands  the  jungle 
still  holds  its  primitive  reign,  affording  covert  to 
wild  beasts  and  cool  glades  for  herds  of  cattle.  In 
general  the  plains  undulate  gently  eastward,  dotted 
with  fruit-bearing  groves,  enamelled  with  bright 
green  rice  fields,  and  studded  with  prosperous 
villages.  The  soil,  although  less  fertile  than  the 
swamps  of  Eastern  Bengal,  returns  in  low-lying 
grounds  two  crops  each  year ;  and  the  bracing 
atmosphere  makes  ample  amends  to  the  cultivator 
for  the  additional  labour  demanded  by  his  fields. 
The  forest  yields  a  spontaneous  wealth  of  timber, 
gums,  and  brilliant  lac-dye ;  the  valleys  produce 
the  finest  indigo ;  cotton,  jute,  sugar-cane,  oil-seeds, 
and  cereals  grow  abundantly ;  from  the  mulberry 
shrubs  are  still  derived  the  silks  that  adorned  the 
beauties  of  the  imperial  seraglio ;  silver  ore  has 
been  dug  out  of  the  mountains ;  copper  is  found 
on  their  slopes  ;  small  particles  of  gold  have  been 
washed  from  the  river  beds ;  and  the  country  has 
long  been  famous  for  its  iron  and  coal. 

This  well-watered  land,  rich  in  noble  scenery,^ 

^  '  A  land  of  hill  and  dale,  wood  and  water,  abounding  in  sceneiy 
interesting  to  the  geologist  and  lover  of  the  picturesque.  The  climate 
also  changes  :  the  nights  are  cool  and  clear  ;  the  damp  and  fog  of 
Calcutta  are  left  behind.' — The  Grand  Trunk  Road,  its  Localities, 
p.  1 8.  Pamphlet,  8vo.  Calcutta.  The  same  traveller  somewhat 
too  enthusiastically  calls  the  Beerbhoom  highlands,  '  the  Switzerland 
of  Bengal.'  This  and  several  other  of  the  pamphlets  by  the  Rev. 
James  Long,  subsequently  quoted,  appeared  originally  as  articles  in 
the  Calcutta  Review. 


THE  ETHNICAL  FRONTIER,  3 

and  enjoying  during  five  months  of  tlie  year  an 
exquisite  climate,  formed  the  theatre  of  one  of  the 
primitive  struggles  of  Indian  history.  It  stood  as 
the  outpost  of  the  Sanskrit  race  on  the  west  of 
Lower  Bengal,  and  had  to  bear  the  sharp  collisions 
of  Aryan  civilisation  with  the  ruder  types  prevailing 
among  the  aborigines.  On  its  inhabitants  devolved, 
during  three  thousand  years,  the  duty  of  holding 
the  passes  between  the  highlands  and  the  valley  of 
the  Ganges.  To  this  day  they  are  a  manlier  race 
than  their  kinsmen  of  the  plains,  and  from  the 
beginning  of  history  one  of  the  two  kingdoms  has 
borne  the  name  of  Mala-bhumi,  the  Country  of  the 
Wrestlers,— the  other  the  appellatioii  of  Yir-bhumi, 
the  Hero  Land. 

It  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  an  ethnical  frontier 
which  must  have  seen  and  suffered  so  much  that 
would  be  interesting  to  mankind  to  know,  should 
be  without  any  record  of  the  past.  Every  county, 
almost  every  parish,  in  England,  has  its  annals  ;  but 
in  India,  vast  provinces,  greater  in  extent  than  the 
British  Islands,  have  no  individual  history  whatever. 
Districts  that  have  furnished  the  sites  of  famous 
batdes,  or  lain  upon  the  routes  of  imperial  pro- 
gresses, appear,  indeed,  for  a  moment  in  the  general 
records  of  the  country ;  but  before  the  eye  has  be- 
come familiar  with  their  uncouth  names,  the  narrative 
passes  on,  and  they  are  forgotten.  Nor  are  the 
inhabitants  themselves  very  much  better  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  the  country  in  which  they  live. 
Each  field,  indeed,  has  its  annals.      The  crops  which 


4  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

it  has  borne  during  the  past  century,  the  rent  which 
it  has  paid,  the  occasions  on  which  it  has  changed 
hands,  the  old  standing  disputes  about  its  water- 
courses and  landmarks,  all  these  are  treasured  up 
with  sufficient  precision.  But  the  bygone  joys  and 
sorrows  of  the  district  in  general,  its  memorable 
vicissitudes,  its  remarkable  men,  the  decline  of  old 
forms  of  industry  and  the  rise  of  new, — in  a  word,  all 
the  weightier  matters  of  rural  history,  are  forgotten. 
Life  wants  the  outdoor  element  which  it  possesses 
in  so  remarkable  a  degree  in  England.  Men  of  the 
upper  classes  come  less  frequently  into  contact  with 
each  other ;  caste  and  religious  differences  dwarf 
the  growth  of  good  fellowship  and  limit  the  inter- 
change of  hospitalities  ;  and  anything  like  society 
in  the  European  sense  of  the  word  is  prevented 
by  the  seclusion  of  the  female  sex.  The  strong 
county  feeling  which  knits  together  the  magnates 
of  an  English  shire  has  not  had  a  chance  of 
being  developed  among  the  landed  gentry  of 
India.  Each  house  scrupulously  preserves  its 
own  archives,  but  carefully  conceals  them  from  its 
neighbours.  Indeed,  it  never  strikes  the  listless, 
rich  native,  that  what  to  him  are  dull  contempo- 
raneous events  will  in  time  possess  the  interest  of 
history  ;  nor  are  there  any  antiquarians  to  gather  up 
such  meagre  records  as  vanity  or  selfishness  may 
have  framed.  English  history  owes  much  of  its 
value,  and  still  more  of  its  pathos,  to  the  stores  of 
private  documents  which  the  strong  individuality  of 
bygone  Englishmen  has  left  behind;  but  in  India, 


THE  MATERIALS  OF  RURAL  HISTORY.  5 

one  rural  generation  dreams  out  its  existence  after 
another,  and  all  are  forgotten. 

Not  many  family  archives  of  importance  have 
passed  into  my  hands.  The  Rajahs  placed  at  my 
disposal  a  portion  of  the  manuscripts  in  their  dilapi- 
dated palaces ;  the  representatives  of  other  dis- 
tinguished houses  followed  their  example ;  Pandits 
were  employed  to  go  about  the  country  in  order  to 
gather  materials  for  a  history  of  each  district  from 
their  own  point  of  view  ;  and  several  native  gentle- 
men co-operated  with  me  in  collecting  the  folk-lore. 
The  result  of  these  inquiries,  however,  was  too 
meagre  and  too  unreliable  for  publication.  But 
four  years  aeo,  in  takino-  over  chargfe  of  the  District 
Treasury,  I  was  struck  with  the  appearance  of  an 
ancient  press,  which,  from  the  state  of  its  padlocks, 
seemed  not  to  have  been  opened  for  many  years, 
and  with  whose  contents  none  of  the  native  officials 
was  acquainted.  On  being  broken  open  it  was 
found  to  contain  the  early  records  of  the  district 
from  within  a  year  of  the  time  that  it  passed 
directly  under  British  rule.  The  volumes  pre- 
sented every  appearance  of  age  and  decay ;  their 
yellow-stained  margins  were  deeply  eaten  into  by 
insects,  their  outer  pages  crumbled  to  pieces  under 
the  most  tender  handling,  and  of  some  the  sole 
palpable  remains  were  chips  of  paper  mingled  with 
the  granular  dust  that  white  ants  leave  behind. 

Careful  research  has  convinced  me  that  these 
neglected  heaps  contain  much  that  is  worthy  of 
being   preserved.       Fur    what    trListwe>rthy   account 


6      THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

have  we  of  the  state  of  rural  India  at  the  com- 
mencement and  during  the  early  stages  of  our 
rule  ?  Eloquent  and  elaborate  narratives  have 
indeed  been  written  of  the  British  ascendency  in 
the  East ;  but  such  narratives  are  records  of  the 
English  Government,  or  biographies  of  the  English 
Governors  of  India,  not  histories  of  the  Indian 
people.  The  silent  millions  who  bear  our  yoke 
have  found  no  annalist.^ 

The  only  extensive  investigations  into  the  rural 
statistics  of  India  are  those  conducted  by  the 
Survey  Department,  and  no  witness  could  give 
more  telling  evidence  in  proof  of  our  ignorance 
than  this,  the  single  one  we  have  to  cite  in  our 
favour.  The  important  parts  of  Bengal  Proper, 
from  a  historical  point  of  view,  are  unquestion- 
ably those  that  lie  around  the  three  cities  which 
three  successive  races  fixed  upon  as  the  head- 
quarters of  their  rule.  The  Origin  and  History 
of  the  district  that  has  Calcutta  for  its  capital  are 
disposed  of  in  rather  more  than  one  page,  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  which  is  taken  up  by  a  feeble 
account  of  the  Black  Hole,  and  the  often  narrated 
hostilities  that  ensued.  The  Origin  and  History 
of  Moorshedabad,  the  ancient  focus  of  Moslem 
magnificence,  are  dismissed  with  half  a  page  ;  and 
Maldah,  the   Hindu  metropolis  of  Bengal,  with  its 

2  The  author  of  *  The  Grand  Trunk  Road,  its  Locahties'  (p.  i6), 
states  that  Vir-bhumi  'is  quite  unexplored.'  This  was  written 
scarcely  ten  years  ago  of  a  district  lying  within  one  hundred  miles  of 
Calcutta,  and  only  a  five  hours'  railway  journey  from  it.  The  extent 
of  our  information  as  to  remoter  provinces  may  be  inferred. 


THE  ABSENCE  OF  R  URAL  HISTOR  V.  ^ 

long  line  of  kings,  its  gigantic  walls  and  arches,  its 
once  stately  palaces  now  the  kennels  of  jackals,  and 
the  vast  untenanted  city  which  has  been  left  stand- 
ing as  a  spectacle  of  desolation  and  warning  to 
those  who  now  are  to  India  what  its  builders  once 
were,  is  treated  as  if  it  had  been  a  sandbank  which 
the  river  silted  up  last  October,  and  will  swallow 
down  again  next  June.  In  a  thin  folio,  not  a  single 
page  has  been  devoted  to  its  history. 

This,  too,  with  the  richest  and  most  authentic 
materials  for  rural  history  at  our  command.  Valu- 
able private  stores  of  documents  are  indeed  want- 
ing; but  for  their  absence  the  abundance  of  official 
records  makes  ample  amends.  In  the  chief  Govern- 
ment office  of  every  district  in  Bengal  are  presses 
filled  with  papers  similar  to  those  I  have  described. 
They  consist  of  reports,  letters,  minutes,  judicial  pro- 
ceedings, and  relate,  in  the  words  of  eye-witnesses 
and  with  official  accuracy,  the  daily  history  of  the 
country  from  the  time  the  English  took  the  admini- 
stration into  their  own  hands.  Many  of  them  are 
written  in  the  curt  forcible  lancruaije  which  men  use 
in  moments  of  excitement  or  peril ;  and  in  spite  of 
the  blunders  of  copyists  and  the  ravages  of  decay, 
they  have  about  them  that  air  of  real  life  which 
proceeds  not  from  literary  ability,  but  from  the  fact 
that  their  authors'  minds  were  full  of  the  subjects 
on  which  they  wrote.  We  learn  from  these  worm- 
eaten  manuscripts  that  what  we  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  regard  as  Indian  history  is  a  chronicle  of 
events  which    hardly  affected,  and   which   were   (<ir 


8  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  most  part  unknown  to,  the  contemporary  mass 
of  the  Indian  people.  On  their  discoloured  pages 
the  conspicuous  vicissitudes  and  revolutions  of  the 
past  century  have  left  no  trace.  Dynasties  struggled 
and  fell,  but  the  bulk  of  the  people  evinced  neither 
sympathy  nor  surprise,  nor  did  the  pulse  of  village 
life  in  Bengal  move  a  single  beat  faster  for  all  the 
calamities  and  panic  of  the  outside  world.  But 
these  volumes,  so  silent  on  subjects  about  which  we 
are  already  well  informed,  speak  at  length  and  with 
the  utmost  precision  on  matters  regarding  which  the 
western  world  is  profoundly  ignorant.  They  depict 
in  vivid  colours  the  state  of  rural  India  when  the 
sceptre  departed  from  the  Mussulman  race.  They 
disclose  the  complicated  evils  that  rendered  our 
accession,  for  some  time,  an  aggravation  rather  than 
a  mitigation  of  the  sufferings  of  the  people.  They 
unfold  one  after  another  the  misapprehensions  and 
disastrous  vacillations  amid  which  our  first  solid 
progress  was  made.  They  impartially  retain  the 
evidence  of  low  motives  and  official  incompetence 
side  by  side  with  the  impress  of  rare  devotion  and 
administrative  skill.  But  taken  as  a  whole,  they 
reveal  the  secret  of  Eno-land's  cri'eatness  in  the  East. 
They  exhibit  a  small  band  of  our  countrymen 
going  forth  to  govern  an  unexplored  and  a  half- 
subdued  territory.  Before  the  grave  heroism  and 
masterful  characters  of  these  men  the  native  mind 
succumbed.  Our  troops  originated  for  us  a  rude 
Mahratta-like  supremacy ;  but  the  rural  records 
attest  that  the  permanent  sources  of  the  English 


THE  OFFICIAL  RECORDS.  9 

ascendency  in  Bengal  have  been,  not  their  brilliant 
military  successes,  but  deliberate  civil  courage  and 
indomitable  will. 

Besides  the  value  of  these  memorials  as  a 
groundwork  for  an  accurate  and  a  yet  unwritten 
history,  they  possess  a  special  interest  to  those 
who  are  charged  with  the  government  of  India  at 
the  present  day.  When  the  East  India  Company 
accepted  the  internal  administration  of  Bengal,  it 
eneaeed  to  rule  in  accordance  with  native  usages  ; 
and  the  first  step  towards  the  fulfilment  of  its  pro- 
mise was  to  ascertain  what  these  usages  really 
were.  To  this  end  instructions  repeatedly  issued 
during  a  period  of  thirty  years  directing  all  local 
officers  to  institute  inquiries,  and  even  after  the 
formal  command  was  removed  the  habit  of  collect- 
ing and  reporting  information  continued  till  1820. 

'The  period  at  which  the  rural  records  open  in 
the  western  districts  is  one  of  peculiar  interest.  It 
stands  on  the  border  ground  between  the  ancient 
and  the  modern  system  of  Indian  government. 
The  evidence  on  which  to  form  a  permanent 
arrangement  of  the  land  revenue  was  in  process 
of  being  collected,  and  not  a  single  subject  of 
fiscal  legislation  nor  a  detail  in  the  agricultural 
economy  of  each  district  escaped  inquiry.  The 
tenure  of  the  landholders  and  their  relations  to 
the  middlemen  ;  the  tenure  of  the  cultivators,  their 
earnings  and  their  style  of  living,  their  clothing 
and  the  occupation  of  their  families  at  odd  hours  ; 
the  price  of  all  sorts  of  country  produce  ;   the  rent 


lo  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

of  various  qualities  of  land ;  the  mineral  products 
of  the  district ;  the  condition  of  the  artisans  and 
manufacturers,  their  profits  and  their  public  bur- 
dens ;  the  native  currency  and  system  of  exchange ; 
the  native  system  of  police ;  the  state  of  the  dis- 
trict jail ;  lastly,  cesses,  tolls,  dues,  and  every  other 
method  of  recoenised  or  unrecognised  taxation, — 
formed  in  turn  the  subject  of  report.  In  a  word, 
the  whole  fabric  of  the  rural  life  of  Bengal,  with 
its  joys,  sorrows,  and  manifold  oppressions,  is  dis- 
sected and  laid  bare. 

The  sweeping  revenue  reforms  inaugurated  at 
the  close  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  century', 
and  the  demands  for  a  more  exact  administration 
that  every  year  has  brought  forth  since,  have  left 
neither  leisure  nor  inclination  for  such  studies. 
The  labours  of  a  previous  school  of  officers  soon 
became  a  subject  of  indifference  to  their  successors ; 
the  quick  decay  of  a  tropical  climate  began  its  work ; 
and  of  the  researches  that  had  occupied  the  ablest 
administrators  during  the  first  fifty  years  of  our  rule, 
— researches  that  they  had  designed  as  the  basis  of 
a  consistent  system  of  Indian  rural  law, — the  greater 
part  has,  during  the  second  fifty  years,  been  made 
over  as  a  prey  to  mildew  and  white  ants. 

What  proportion  has  perished  can  never  be 
known.  What  part  survives  can  only  be  perma- 
nently preserved  by  the  intervention  of  the  State. 
Among  a  highly  cultured  people  the  writing  of 
national  history  ma)^  well  be  left  to  private  efforts ; 
but  in  modern  India  no  leisurely  and  lettered  class 


THE  SOURCES  OF  THIS   WORK.  ii 

has  yet  been  developed  to  conduct  such  researches." 
In  truth,  government  among  imperfectly  civilised 
societies  has  to  discharge  many  functions  which,  in 
a  more  advanced  stage,  may,  with  great  wisdom,  be 
made  over  to  individual  enterprise.  No  one  can 
be  more  sensitively  conscious  than  the  writer  of  the 
imperfections  of  a  work  written  in  the  jungle,  eight 
thousand  miles  distant  from  European  libraries, 
amid  the  changes  and  daily  exactions  of  an  Indian 
career.  But  this  isolation,  while  productive  of 
sufficiently  obvious  defects,  has  enabled  him  to 
essay  several  things  not  attempted  before.  The 
manuscript  Indian  archives  in  London,  in  Cal- 
cutta, and  in  the  provincial  offices  of  Bengal  have 
for  the  first  time  been  compared,  and  their  infor- 
mation brought  to  a  common  focus.  Learned 
natives  have  been  employed  to  compile  district 
histories,  and  the  Ancient  Houses  of  Bengal  have 
been  induced,  for  the  first  time  in  the  English  annals 
of  the  Province,  to  open  up  their  family  record- 
rooms.  The  whole  body  of  missionaries — Episco- 
pal, Baptist,  and  American  Dissenters — who  labour 
among  the  lapsed  races  on  the  ethnical  frontier, 
have  heartily  joined  in  the  work,  each  favouring  me 
with    the   results    of  his    own    researches    into  the 

'  Dr.  Buchanan,  who  was  engaged  in  a  statistical  and  historical 
sur\'ey  of  the  districts  north  of  Beerbhoom  (1807-1814),  could  not  find 
a  single  antiquarian  or  a  single  historical  document  throughout  the 
great  province  of  Bahar. — The  History,  Antiquities,  etc.,  of  Eastern 
India,  compiled  from  the  Buchanan  MSS.,  in  the  East  India 
House,  by  R.  Montgomery  Martin,  3  vols.  8vo,  1838,  vol.  I.,  p.  21. 
This  work  would  form  an  excellent  basis  for  a  history  of  rural 
Bengal,  were  it  not  confined  to  a  few  districts  only. 


12  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

languages  and  habits  of  the  hill-men.  If  it  were 
not  invidious  to  particularize  any  single  class  of 
my  coadjutors,  it  would  be  to  these  learned  and 
reverend  gentlemen  that  I  should  wish  to  return 
especial  thanks. 

Whatever  may  be  the  shortcomings  of  this  pre- 
liminary volume,  the  author  believes  that  it  will 
lead  to  the  discovery,  and  he  hopes  to  the  rescue, 
of  a  vast  store  of  materials  from  which  an  invalu- 
able work  mieht  be  educed ;  materials  which  will 
enable  the  Indian  Government  to  discharge  two 
hitherto  neglected  duties ;  the  duty  which  it  owes 
to  our  own  nation,  of  preserving  the  only  circum- 
stantial memorials  of  British  rule  in  Bengal,  and  the 
duty  it  owes  to  other  nations,  of  interpreting  the 
rural  millions  of  India  to  the  western  world.* 

*  It  is  due  to  the  Bengal  Government  to  state,  that  I  was  relieved 
during  a  short  time  from  other  duties,  in  order  to  be  enabled  to  pro- 
secute the  researches  of  which  this  volume  is  the  first-fruits.  But 
hardly  had  the  arrangement  been  made  when  the  famine  of  1865-66 
came,  and  the  services  of  every  officer  were  required  for  practical 
work. 


THE  HEREDITARY  CHIEFS.  jj 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    STATE    OF    THE    COUNTRY    WHEN    IT    PASSED 
UNDER    BRITISH    RULE. 

/^N  the  29th  of  jNIarch  17CS7,  the  British  Govern- 
ment undertook  the  direct  administration  of 
the  two  great  frontier  principaHties  of  Lower  Bengal. 
Situated  on  the  extreme  verge  of  unwieldy  jurisdic- 
tions, and  separated  from  headquarters  by  rivers  and 
swamps,  and  almost  impassable  jungle,  they  had, 
up  to  this  time,  been  permitted  by  the  English  to 
remain  pretty  much  as  we  had  found  them,  in  the 
hands  of  their  hereditary  princes.^  The  position  of 
these  noblemen  was  in  many  respects  analogous  to 
that  of  wardens  of  the  marches  in  feudal  times. 
They  held  their  territory  partly  as  semi-indepen- 
dent chiefs,  partly  upon  a  military  tenure  from 
the  Viceroy  of  Bengal,  paying  only  a  small  tribute, 

'  Bcerbhoom  had  been  temporarily  placed  under  supervision  in 
1769;  it  was  formally  'visited'  by  the  Committee  of  Circuit  in 
1772,  but  the  local  administration  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
Rajah  as  Amil.  —  Consultations  of  the  Revenue  Council  of  Moor- 
shedabad,  dated  23d  October  1770,  28th  February  1771,  etc.  ;  the 
Rajah's  petition,  in  Proceedings  of  the  Select  Committee,  dated 
28th  April  1770,  I.  O.  R.  ;  Family  Book  of  the  Princes  of  Bcer- 
bhoom, B.  D.  A. 


14  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

and  being  held  responsible  for  the  defence  of  the 
western  frontier.  But  during  the  half-century  pre- 
ceding 1787  their  power  had  rapidly  declined.  In 
the  northern  district  Vir-bhumi,  literally  Hero 
Land,  or  as  it  is  commonly  written  in  English 
documents,  Beerbhoom,  an  unsuccessful  rebellion 
had  subjected  the  people  to  double  burdens,  and 
a  painful  disease  had  prevented  several  successive 
princes  from  heading  their  troops  in  the  field.  In 
the  southern  district,  anciently  called  Mala-bhumi, 
the  Land  of  the  Wrestlers,  but  now  known  as 
Bishenpore,  matters  were  still  worse.  ^  Family 
feuds  had  wasted  the  inheritance,  and  the  reign- 
ing prince,  a  white-haired,  feeble  man,  had  sunk 
beneath  an  accumulation  of  misfortunes.  In 
neither  district  was  the  hereditary  chief  in  a  posi- 
tion to  provide  for  the  security  of  his  people. 
Bodies  of  marauders  congregated  upon  the  frontier, 
where  the  mountain  system  slopes  down  upon  the 
Gangetic  valley,  and  in  1784  the  evil  had  grown 
so  serious  as  to  require  the  interference  of  the 
British  power.^  In  May  1785,  the  collector  of 
Moorshedabad,  at  the  extremity  of  whose  jurisdic- 
tion Beerbhoom  lay,  formally  declared  the  civil 
authorities  '  destitute  of  any  force  capable  of  mak- 
ing head  against  such  an  armed  multitude,'  and 
petitioned    for    troops    to    act    against    bands    of 

*  Bishenpore  is  at  present  divided  between  the  districts  of  Ban- 
corah  and  Midnapore.     Bh.  R. 

^  Letter  from  Edward  Otto  Ives,  Esq.,  Magistrate  of  Moorshe- 
dabad, to  the  Govern  or- General  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Council  of 
Revenue,  dated  15th  August  1784.     B.  J.  R. 


THE  OLD  SYSTEM  BREAKS  DOWN.  15 

plunderers  four  hundred  strong.*  A  month  later, 
the  banditti  had  grown  to  '  near  a  thousand  people,' 
and  were  preparing  for  an  organized  invasion  of 
the  lowlands/  Next  year  we  find  the  freebooters 
firmly  established  in  Beerbhoom  ;  strong  positions 
occupied  by  their  permanent  camps  ;  the  hereditary 
prince  unable  to  sit  for  an  hour  on  his  state  cushion, 
much  less  to  appear  in  the  field  ;  the  public  revenue 
intercepted  on  its  way  to  the  treasury,  and  the  com- 
mercial operations  of  the  company  within  the  dis- 
trict at  a  stand.''  It  was  clear  that  the  old  system 
of  thino;s  could  not  last  much  longer.  A  British 
civil  officer  was  accordingly  despatched  from  Moor- 
shedabad  to  support  the  Rajah  against  the  marau- 
ders, to  inquire  into  the  grievances  of  the  peasantry, 
and  to  ascertain  the  amount  of  revenue  which  the 
principality,  if  relieved  of  the  incidents  of  a  mili- 
tary tenure  and  brought  directly  under  British  rule, 
could  afford  to  pay.' 

No  records  of  this  gentleman's  administration 
have  been  discovered.  It  does  not  appear  that  he 
increased  the  public  burdens,  nor  indeed  was  time 
allowed  him  to  do  so.  Lord  Cornwallis,  when  re- 
adjusting the  divisions  of  Bengal  in  1787,®  saw  that 

*  Letter  from  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  IVIoorshcdabad,  26th 
May  1785.     B.  J.  R. 

'  Letter  from  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  30th  June  1785. 
B.  J.  R. 

*  Many  factories  were  abandoned  altogether.     B.  R.  R. 

^  Miscellaneous  proceedings  :  Committee  of  Revenue,  Fort- 
William.  The  deputation  of  Mr.  G.  R.  Foley,  the  gentleman  in 
question,  received  sanction  on  the  9th  ot  February  1786.     C.  O.  R. 

^  Board  of  Revenue's  MS.  Records.     C.  O.  R. 


1 6  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

this  was  not  a  case  for  half-measures  or  makeshifts, 
and  that  Beerbhoom  would  never  be  free  from  the 
hill  plunderers  so  long  as  it  remained  a  remote  de- 
pendency of  Moorshedabad.  The  southern  district, 
Bishenpore,  had  before  this  reached  a  state  that 
demanded  the  presence  of  a  responsible  repre- 
sentative of  the  Government,  and  Lord  Cornwallis 
determined  to  unite  the  two  border  principalities 
into  one  compact  British  district.  Accordingly, 
in  the  Calcutta  Gazette  of  the  29th  of  March 
1787,  the  following  appointment  was  announced: 
'  W.  Pye,  Esq.,  confirmed  Collector  of  Bishenpore 
in  addition  to  Beerbhoom,  heretofore  superintended 
by  G.  R.  Foley,  Esq.' ' 

It  does  not  appear  that  Mr.  Pye  ever  visited 
Beerbhoom  except  in  pursuit  of  banditti  who  had 
sacked  some  towns  in  Bishenpore,  and  he  suddenly 
quitted  the  district  for  a  distant  part  of  Bengal  three 
weeks  after  the  above  appointment  appeared. ^°  His 
successor  was  Mr.  Sherburne,  a  gentleman  whose 
history  and  misfortunes  will  hereafter  occupy  some 

^  The  Calcutta  Gazette,  or  Oriental  Advertiser,  folio  and  quarto, 
a  weekly  paper  published  on  Thursdays,  with  Gazettes  Extraordi- 
nary for  special  orders  of  Government  and  other  news.  The  most 
perfect  series  of  this  journal  is  in  the  India  Office  Librarj- :  it  ex- 
tends from  1784  to  1805,  with  a  break  between  1802  and  1804.  Two 
volumes  of  selections  have  been  compiled  from  a  less  perfect  copy 
in  India  by  Mr.  W.  S.  Seton-Karr,  of  the  Bengal  Civil  Service,  one 
of  Her  Majesty's  Judges  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  Bengal.     I.  O.  L. 

^"  Bishenpore  had  been  placed  under  Mr.  Pye  on  the  25th  April 
1786 ;  he  left  the  United  District  on  the  19th  April  1787.  Having 
got  scent  of  promotion  he  did  not  wait  for  the  arrival  of  his  successor, 
but  made  over  charge  to  his  assistant. — MS.  Office  Memo.  Book, 
Board  of  Revenue.     C.  O.  R. 


THE  NE  W  S  YSTEM  INA  UG  URA  TED.  i  7 

pages."  During  his  brief  administration  of  a  year 
and  a  half  the  capital  of  the  united  district  was 
transferred  from  Bishenpore,  on  the  south  of  the 
Adji,  to  Soorie  the  present  headquarters  in  Beer- 
bhoom,  on  the  north  of  the  river ;  the  larger  bodies 
of  marauders  were  broken  up,  and  the  two  heredi- 
tary princes  reduced  to  the  rank  of  private  country 
gentlemen.  Mr.  Sherburne  ruled  sternly,  as  a 
governor  of  a  newly  subjected  frontier  ought  to 
rule,  and  his  name  remains  in  the  mouths  of  old 
inhabitants  to  this  day.  In  those  times,  however, 
the  only  result  of  placing  an  energetic  man  at  the 
head  of  a  district  was  to  disperse  the  banditti  into 
the  adjoining  jurisdictions,  and  in  October  1788  the 
Calcutta  newspaper  announced  that  a  Beerbhoom 
treasure  party  had  been  attacked  on  the  south  of 
the  Adji,  the  military  guard  overpowered,  five  men 
slain,  and  more  than  three  thousand  pounds  worth 
of  silver  carried  off.^^ 

Early  in  November  1788,  Mr.  Sherburne  was 
removed  under  suspicion  of  corrupt  dealings,  and 
after  a  short  interregnum  Mr.  Christopher  Keating 
assumed  charge  of  the  united  district. '■'  Mr.  Keat- 
ing found  the  local   administration  in  full  working 

1^  Appointed,  4th  April  1787  ;  received  chnrge,  29th  April  17S7  ; 
delivered  over  charge,  3d  November  178S.  lioard  of  Revenue  Re- 
cords.    C.  O.  R. 

''^  Sicca  rupees  30,000.  Calcutta  Gazette  of  Thursday,  i6th 
October  1788.  The  attack  took  place  within  the  district  of  IJurdwan, 
Thanna  Maniranipore. 

1^  Appointed,  29th  October  1788  ;  received  charge  of  the  dis- 
trict, 14th  November;  gave  over  charge  to  his  successor  and  left 
the  district,  6th  August  1793,  after  an  administration  of  nearly  five 
years.     C.  O.  R. 

VOL.   I.  n 


i8  rifE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

order,   under  the  experimental  system  which  forms 
the   distinguishing   feature  of  the   first  four  years 
of  Lord    CornwalHs'   reign.      During  the  eighteen 
months  of  Mr.   Sherburne's  rule,   the  two  frontier 
principalities    had    passed    from    the    condition    of 
military  fiefs  into  that  of  a  regular  British  district, 
administered   by  a  collector  and  covenanted  assist- 
ants,  defended   by  the  Company's  troops,  studded 
with  fortified  factories,  intersected  by  a  new  military 
road,  and  possessing  daily  communication  with  the 
seat  of  orovernment  in  Calcutta.      The  local  records 
are  preserved  without  interruption  from  this  date, 
and    the    short    interval    between    1786    when   the 
district   was    entirely   under   its   native    chiefs,   and 
1788,  the  period  with  regard  to  which  our  informa- 
tion becomes  exact,  although  it  changed  the  position 
of  the  Rajahs  and  the  form  of  the  local  administra- 
tion, could  not  in  any  important  degree  have  altered 
the   condition   of  the   people.      The   inhabitants   of 
Beerbhoom    and    Bishenpore    in    November    1788 
were,  so  far  as  regards  their  numbers,  their  habits, 
their  burdens,  and  their  social  welfare,  precisely  in 
the  circumstances  in  which   Mr.  Pye  found  them  in 
March    1787.      The   benefits    w^hich   they  enjoyed 
and  the  evils  which  they  suffered,  they  owed  not 
to    English  but   to    native    government,    and    their 
condition   may  be  assumed  to  fairly  represent  the 
state  of   similar   semi-independent   principalities   at 
the  period  of  their,  passing  under  our  rule.      This 
state,    viewed   from   the    other    side    of   the    sflobe, 
mellowed  by  the  lapse  of  time,  and  regarded  with 


THE  GREAT  FAMINE  C)/' 1769  70.  19 

that  tenderness  which  spontaneously  goes  forth  to 
ancient  types  that  have  passed  away,  has  been 
depicted  as  happier  and  infinitely  better  suited  to 
the  natives  of  Bengal,  than  their  subsequent  con- 
dition under  British  governors.  Whether  such 
pictures  are  borne  out  by  closer  inspection,  the 
rural  records,  written  by  eye-witnesses  and  without 
any  view  to  history,  will  show. 

In  the  cold  weather  of  1769  Bengal  was  visited 
by  a  famine  whose  ravages  two  generations  failed 
to  repair.  English  historians,  treating  of  Indian 
history  as  a  series  of  struggles  about  the  Com- 
pany's charter  enlivened  with  startling  military 
exploits,  have  naturally  little  to  say  regarding  an 
occurrence  which  involved  neither  a  battle  nor  a 
parliamentary  debate.  Mill,  with  all  his  accurac)- 
and  minuteness,  can  spare  barely  five  lines"  for  the 
subject,  and  the  recent  Famine  Commissioners  con- 
fess themselves  unable  to  fill  in  the  details.  ^^  But 
the  disaster  which  from  this  distance  floats  as  a 
faint  speck  on  the  horizon  of  our  rule,  stands  out 
in  the  contemporary  records  in  appalling  propor- 
tions. It  forms,  indeed,  the  key  to  the  history 
of  Bengal  during  the  succeeding  forty  years.  It 
places  in  a  new  light  those  broad  tracks  of 
desolation    which    the    English    conquerors    found 

'^  \'ol.  iii.  p.  486.     8vo.     i860. 

'^  *  We  have  not  yet  been  able  to  obtain  any  details  of  the  great 
famine  in  Bengal  of  1770.' — Papers,  etc.,  relating  to  the  famine  in 
Bengal  and  Orissa  (1866),  presented  to  Parliament  by  Her  Majesty's 
command.  Folio.  Vol.  i.  p.  22S.  Fti'thor  on,  however  (p.  345  . 
some  information  is  given. 


2  0  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

everywhere  throughout  the  Lower  Valley  ;  it  un- 
folds the  sufferings  entailed  on  an  ancient  rural 
society,  by  being  suddenly  placed  in  a  position  in 
which  its  immemorial  forms  and  usages  could  no 
longer  apply ;  and  then  it  explains  how,  out  of  the 
disorganized  and  fragmentary  elements,  a  new  order 
of  things  was  evolved.'^ 

Lower  Bengal  has  three  harvests  each  year  :  a 
scanty  pulse  crop  in  spring ;  a  more  important  rice 
crop  in  autumn ;  and  the  great  rice  crop,  the  harvest 
of  the  year,  in  December.  In  the  early  part  of 
1769  high  prices"  had  ruled,  owing  to  the  partial 
failure  of  the  crops  in  1768,  but  the  scarcity  had 
not  been  so  severe  as  materially  to  affect  the 
Government  rental.  In  spite  of  the  complaints 
and  forebodings  of  local  officers,  the  authorities  at 
headquarters  reported  that  the  land-tax  had  been 

^^  Besides  the  official  papers  subsequently  quoted,  the  following 
pamphlets,  some  of  them  I  believe  uniques,  have  been  used  as 
materials  for  this  chapter  :  'A  Narrative  of  what  happened  in  Bengal 
in  1760;'  no  title-page.  'Memoirs  of  the  Revolutions  in  Bengal,' 
1760.  '  Lord  Clive's  Letter  to  the  Proprietors  of  the  East  India 
Stock,'  1764.  '  Dangers,  etc.,  from  the  East  India  Company's  build- 
mg  their  own  Ships,'  1768.  *  Original  Papers  relative  to  the  Dis- 
turbances in  Bengal  from  1759  to  1764'  (a  most  valuable  collection), 
1765.  'An  Account  of  the  Trade  to  the  East  Indies,'  etc.,  with  two 
other  tracts,  1772.  '  Essay  on  the  Rights  of  the  East  India  Company,' 
1776.  '  Letter  from  G.  Dodwell,  Esq.,  to  the  Proprietors,'  1777.  Two 
tracts  upon  the  Company's  building  their  own  shipping,  1778.  '  Con- 
siderations on  the  East  India  Bill  now  depending  in  Parliament,' 
1779.  After  1780  the  pamphlets  and  newspaper  articles  relative  to 
Bengal  become  too  multitudinous  for  enumeration.  The  number 
consulted  exceeds  130.     O.  C.  and  I.  O.  L. 

1''  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
dated  Fort  William,  30th  September  1769.  Proceedings  of  the 
Select  Committee,  ist  February  1769,  etc.     I.  O.  K 


THE  HARVESTS  OF  1769.  21 

rigorously  enforced  i^*^  and  the  rains  of  1  769,  although 
deficient  in  the  northern  districts,  seemed  for  a  time 
to  promise  relief''  In  the  Delta  they  had  been  so 
abundant  as  to  cause  temporary  loss  from  inunda- 
tion ;  and  during  the  succeeding  year  of  general 
famine,  the  whole  south-east  of  Bengal  uttered  no 
complaint.^'"  The  September  harvest,  indeed,  was 
sufficient  to  enable  the  Bengal  Council  to  promise 
grain  to  Madras  on  a  large  scale,-'^  notwithstanding 
the  high  prices.  But  in  that  month  the  periodical 
rains  prematurely  ceased,  and  the  crop  which  de- 
pended on  them  for  existence  withered.  '  The 
fields  of  rice,'  wrote  the  native  superintendent  of 
Bishenpore  at  a  later  period,  '  are  become  like  fields 
of  dried  straw.'  Calamitous  predictions,  however, 
were  at  that  time  so  common  on  the  part  of  local 
officials,  that  the  Governor  declined  to  transmit 
the  alarm.  The  only  serious  intimation  of  the 
approaching  famine  to  the  Court  of  Directors  in 
1  769,  is  not  signed  by  the  President,  ]\Ir.  Verelst, 
but  by  Mr.  John  Cartier,  the  second  in  Council, 
who  was  to  succeed  him.'^  The  Government  had 
deemed    it    necessary   to    lay   in   a    supply  for  the 

'**  '  The  Revenues  were  never  so  closely  collected  before.' — Resi- 
dent at  the  Durbar,  7th  February  1769.     I.  O.  R. 

'"  Mr.  Rumbold,  chief  of  Bahar,  at  consultation  of  the  16th 
Au;4ust  1769. 

'""Mr.  Becher,  Resident  at  the  Durbar,  30th  March  1770,  etc. 
I.  O.  R. 

-"  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
tlalcd  25th  September  1769.     Public  Consultation,  August  7,  1769. 

'-'  From  the  same  to  the  same,  duted  23d  November  1768,  paras. 
8,  9,  10.  Mr.  Verelst's  omission  to  sij^n  was  probably  intentional,  as 
he  took  part  in  the  proceediui^s  and  >i;^ned  another  letter  of  the  same 


2  2  THE  ANNALS  01'  RURAL  BENGAL. 

troops, — a  piece  of  foresight  at  that  period  common 
when  a  harvest  was  either  very  abundant  or  very 
scanty,  and  one  which  Mr.  Cartier  wholly  failed  to 
carry  out  in  the  present  instance. 

On  the  24th  of  December,  after  the  last  harvest 
of  the  year  had  been  gathered  in,  Mr.  Verelst  laid 
down  his  office,  without  having  conveyed  to  his 
masters  a  sinele  intimation  of  the  true  nature  of  the 
impending  famine.^'^ 

On  the  same  day  Mr.  Cartier  took  over  charge 
of  the  province,  but  he  seems  to  have  intimated  to 
his  masters  no  further  anxiety  until  late  in  January 
1770.  In  the  fourth  week  of  that  month  he  writes 
that  one  district  was  suffering  so  severely  that  some 
slight  remission  of  the  land-tax  would  have  to  be 
made;^'^  but  ten  days  afterwards  he  informs  the 
Court,  that  although  the  distress  was  undoubtedly 
very  great,  the  Council  had  not  *  yet  found  any 
failure  in  the  revenue  or  stated  payments.'  -^ 

New  hopes  had  also  arisen,  for  the  spring  crop 

date.  The  letters  of  the  25th  and  30th  September  only  express 
apprehensions  for  the  revenue,  not  of  general  famine  in  Bengal. 

-'-  From  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
dated  26th  December  1769.  Postscript.  In  Appendix  B,  '  The  Great 
Famine  of  1770  officially  described,'  extracts  from  the  original  docu- 
ments will  be  found.  The  reader  should  discriminate  between  the 
apprehensions  of  local  officers  and  the  general  f;\cts  as  ascertained 
and  accepted  by  Government. 

-^  Letter  from  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  25th  January  1770, 
para.  48.  The  proposed  remission  was  about  ^30,000,  out  of  a  total 
revenue  which  in  1787  amounted  to  ^450,000  sterling.  Letter  from 
the  Governor-General  in  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors,  dated  31st 
July  1787.     L  O.  R. 

2*  Letter  from  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  4th  February  1770, 
paras.  4,  5,  and  6.     L  O.  R, 


THE  SPRING  C>A  1770.  23 

now  covered  the  fields  and  promised  a  speedy 
although  a  scanty  rehef.  It  was  ascertained,  mure- 
over,  that  both  banks  of  the  Ganges,  in  the  north  of 
the  province,  had  yielded  an  abundant  barley  and 
wheat  harvest."  The  people  suffered  intensely, 
— how  intensely,  it  seems  to  have  been  as  difficult 
then  as  now  for  the  Central  Government  to  ascer- 
tain until  too  late ;  and  notwithstanding  alarming- 
reports  from  the  districts,  up  to  the  middle  of 
February  the  Council  believed  the  question  to  be 
chiefly  one  of  revenue.  The  utmost  that  could  be 
expected  from  Government,  it  wrote,  would  be  a 
lenient  policy  towards  the  husbandmen  whom  a 
bad  harvest  had  disabled  from  paying  the  usual 
land-tax,""  It  was  common  at  that  period  to  make 
temporary  remissions  and  advances  whenever  a 
harvest  proved  deficient;  but  during  1769-70,  al- 
though such  indulgences  were  constantly  proposed, 
they  were  not,  except  in  a  very  few  isolated  in- 
stances, granted.  Various  charitable  schemes  were 
proposed,  but  no  other  relief  measures  at  this 
period  are  specified  in  the  letters  home,  and  the 
local  efforts,  as  will  be  afterwards  seen,  were  on  a 
sadly  inadequate  scale.  In  April  a  scanty  spring- 
harvest  was  gathered  in ;  and  the  Council,  acting 
upon  the  advice  of  its  Mussulman  Minister  ot 
b  inance,  added  ten  per  cent,  to  the  land-tax  k)r  tlie 
ensuing  year." 

-•'''  Consultation  of  the  9th  June   1770.     I.  O.  R. 
-"   Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
d.iled  4th  P'ebruary  1770,  para.  6.      I.  O.  R. 

-''   Letter  from  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  i  nh  September   1770, 


24  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

But  the  distress  continued  to  increase  at  a  rate 
that  baffled  official  calculation.^**  The  marvellous 
and  infinitely  pathetic  silence  under  suffering  which 
characterizes  the  Bengali  at  length  was  broken  ;  and 
in  the  second  week  of  May,  the  Central  Govern- 
ment awoke  to  find  itself  in  the  midst  of  universal 
and  irremediable  starvation.  '  The  mortality,  the 
beggary,'  they  then  wrote,  '  exceed  all  description. 
Above  one-third  of  the  inhabitants  have  perished 
in  the  once  plentiful  province  of  Purneah,  and  in 
other  parts  the  misery  is  equal.' "^ 

The  inability  of  the  Government  to  appreciate 
the  true  character  of  the  calamity  is  rendered  more 
remarkable  by  the  circumstance,  that  at  that  period 
the  local  administration  continued  in  the  hands  of 
the  former  native  officers.^**  A  Mussulman  Minister 
of  State ^^  regulated  the  whole  internal  government ; 
native  revenue  farmers  covered  the  province,  prying 
into  every  barn,  and  shrewdly  calculating  the  crop 
on  every  field  ;  native  judges  retained  their  seats  in 
the  rural  courts  ;  and  native  officers  still  discharged 
the  whole  functions  of  the  police.  These  men 
knew  the  country,  its  capabilities,  its  average  yield 
and  its  average  requirements,  with  an  accuracy  that 

para.  5.  The  financial  year  commenced  on  the  loth  of  April.  The 
revenue  was  raised  from  ^1,380,269  to  ^1,524,567  during  the  famine 
year.     I.  O.  R. 

-'*  The  spring  crops  proved  deficient.  Letter  from  the  President 
and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors,  dated  9th  May  1770.     I.  O.  R. 

-^  Same  letter,  para.  3. 

2"  It  was  not  till  1772  that  the  Company  stood  forth  as  the  civil 
administrator  of  Bengal. 

^'  The  celebrated  Mahomed  Rcza  Khan. 


BENGALI  RETICENCE.  25 

the  most  painstaking  English  ofiicial  can  seldom 
hope  to  attain  to.  They  had  a  strong  interest  in 
representing  things  to  be  worse  than  they  were ;  for 
the  more  intense  the  scarcity,  the  greater  the  merit 
in  collecting  the  land-tax.  Every  consultation  is 
filled  with  their  apprehensions  and  highly-coloured 
accounts  of  the  public  distress ;  but  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  conviction  entered  the  minds  of 
the  Council  during  the  previous  Winter  months, 
that  the  question  was  not  so  much  one  of  re- 
venue as  of  depopulation.  This  misconception, 
strange  as  it  may  appear,  is  susceptible  of  explana- 
tion. From  the  first  appearance  of  Lower  Bengal 
in  history,  its  inhabitants  have  been  reticent,  self- 
contained,  distrustful  of  foreign  observation,  in  a 
degree  without  parallel  among  other  equally  civi- 
lised nations.  The  cause  of  this  taciturnity  will 
afterwards  be  clearly  explained  ;  but  no  one  who  is 
acquainted  cither  with  the  past  experiences  or  the 
present  condition  of  the  people,  can  be  ignorant 
of  its  results.  Local  officials  may  write  alarming 
reports,  but  their  apprehensions  seem  to  be 
contradicted  by  the  apparent  quiet  that  prevails. 
Outward  palpable  proofs  of  suffering  are  often 
wholly  wanting;  and  even  when,  as  in  1770, 
such  proofs  abound,  there  is  generally  no  lack  of 
evidence  on  the  other  side.  The  Bengali  bears 
existence  with  a  composure  that  neither  accident 
nor  chance  can  ruffle.  He  becomes  silently  rich 
or  uncomplainingly  poor.  The  emotional  part  of 
his   nature   is   in   strict   subjection ;    his   resentment 


26  THE  ANNALS  Of  RURAL  BENGAL. 

eiuluring,  but  unspoken  ;  his  gratitude  of  the 
sort  that  silently  descends  from  generation  to 
generation.  The  passion  for  privacy  reaches  its 
climax  in  the  domestic  relations.  An  outer  apart- 
ment, in  even  the  humblest  households,  is  set  apart 
for  strangers  and  the  transaction  of  business,  but 
everything  behind  it  is  a  mystery.  The  most 
intimate  friend  does  not  venture  to  make  those 
commonplace  kindly  inquiries  about  a  neighbour's 
wife  or  daughter,  which  European  courtesy  demands 
from  mere  acquaintances.  This  family  privacy  is 
maintained  at  any  price.  During  the  famine  of 
1866  it  was  found  impossible  to  render  public 
charity  available  to  the  female  members  of  the 
respectable  classes,  and  many  a  rural  household 
starved  slowly  to  death  without  uttering  a  com- 
plaint or  making  a  sign. 

All  through  the  stifling  summer  of  1770  the 
people  went  on  dying.  The  husbandmen  sold  their 
cattle ;  they  sold  their  implements  of  agriculture  ; 
they  devoured  their  seed-grain ;  they  sold  their 
sons  and  daughters,  till  at  length  no  buyer  of 
children  could  be  found  ;^^  they  ate  the  leaves  of 
trees ^^  and  the  grass  of  the  field  ;  and  in  June  1770 
the  Resident  at  the  Durbar  affirmed  that  the  living 
were  feeding  on  the  dead."*  Day  and  night  a 
torrent  of  famished   and   disease-stricken  wretches 

3-  Petition  of  Mahomed  Ala  Khan,  Foiijdar  of  Purneah. — Con- 
sultations, 28th  April  1770,  etc.     I.  O.  R. 

^'  Petition  of  Ujaggar  Mull,  Amil  of  Jessorc. — Consultations  of 
2Sth  April  1770.     I.  O.  R. 

^*  Letter  of  the  2d  June.     Consultation  of  9th  June  1770.     I.  O.  R. 


THE  SUMMER  OE  itjo.  27 

poured  into  the  great  cities.  At  an  early  period 
of  the  year  pestilence  had  broken  out.  In  March 
we  find  smallpox  at  Moorshedabad,  where  it 
glided  through  the  Viceregal  mutes,  and  cut  ofi* 
the  Prince  Syfut  in  his  palace.^^  The  streets  were 
blocked  up  with  promiscuous  heaps  of  the  dying 
and  dead.  Interment  could  not  do  its  work  quick 
enough ;  even  the  dogs  and  jackals,  the  pubhc 
scavengers  of  the  East,  became  unable  to  accom- 
plish  their  revolting  work,  and  the  multitude  of 
mangled  and  festering  corpses  at  length  threatened 
the  existence  of  the  citizens. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  famine,  a  young  civilian 
landcLl  in  Calcutta  who  was  destined  to  reach  the 
highest  post  that  a  British  subject  can  aspire  to  in 
the  East.  John  Shore,  afterwards  Lord  Teign- 
mouth,  was  a  man  of  singular  honesty,  and  one 
who  held  in  especial  disdain  the  art  of  colouring 
or  exaggerating.  The  scenes  of  1770  left  an  im- 
pression on  his  mind  that  neither  an  eventful  career 
nor  an  unusually  prolonged  period  of  active  life 
could  efface.  When  in  high  office  he  always  dis- 
played a  peculiar  sensitiveness  with  regard  to  the 
premonitory  signs  of  scarcity,  and  elaborated  a 
system  by  which  he  hoped  to  avert  famine.  Mis 
most  historical  act^"  was  prompted  by  the  effects  of 

^^  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Direc- 
tors, dated  i8th  March  1770.     I.  O.  R. 

^^  His  opposition  to  Lord  Cornwallis  with  regard  to  making  the 
settlement  of  1789  permanent  at  once.  Shore  thought  that  a  country 
only  half-peopled  and  with  one-third  of  its  surface  lying  waste,  was 
not  ready  for  such  a  measure. 


2  8  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

the  depopulation  occasioned  by  the  calamity  we  are 
describing,  and  nearly  forty  years  afterwards,  when 
many  of  the  later  incidents  of  Eastern  service  had 
passed  from  his  remembrance,  his  undying  recollec- 
tion of  the  horrors  of  1770  found  expression  in 
verse.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  only  non- 
official  description  we  possess  by  an  eye-witness  is 
a  metrical  one ;  but  it  should  be  remembered  that 
John  Shore's  poetry  adheres  as  closely  to  the  facts 
as  many  men's  prose  : — 

'  Still  fresh  in  memory's  eye  the  scene  I  view, 
The  shrivelled  limbs,  sunk  eyes,  and  lifeless  hue  ; 
Still  hear  the  mother's  shrieks  and  infant's  moans, 
Cries  of  despair  and  agonizing  moans. 
In  wild  confusion  dead  and  dying  lie  ; — 
Hark  to  the  jackal's  yell  and  vulture's  cry, 
The  dog's  fell  howl,  as  midst  the  glare  of  day 
They  riot  unmolested  on  their  prey  ! 
Dire  scenes  of  horror,  which  no  pen  can  trace. 
Nor  rolling  years  from  memory's  page  efface.' "'^ 

Christian  humanity  and  enlightened  government 
have  rendered  modern  statesmen  ignorant  of  the 
meaning  of  the  words  pestilence  and  famine  in  their 
ancient  sense.  The  recent  calamity  in  Bengal  has 
indeed  given  us  a  hint  as  to  what  the  latter  term 
might  come  to  mean  ;  but  even  the  local  officers  who 
saw  it  at  the  worst,  will  hardly  be  prepared  for  the 
effects  of  a  famine  under  the  old  regime.  Lest  any 
one  should  be  tempted  to  consider  Shore's  verses 
coloured,    or   my    own    pages    strained,    I    copy   a 

^'  Memoir  of  the  Life  and  Correspondence  of  John  Lord  Tcign- 
mouth,  by  his  Son.     Vol.  i.  pp.  25,  26.     8vo.     London,  1843. 


THE  DESOLATION  OE  GOUR.  29 

description,  faithfully  drawn  from  the  Mussulman 
writers,  of  the  calamity  that  befell  Gour  several 
centuries  before.  ^^  As  the  famine  of  1770  stands 
an  appalling  spectre  on  the  threshold  of  British  rule 
in  India,  so  the  year  in  which  Bengal  was  incor- 
porated into  the  Mogul  Empire  is  marked  by  a 
disaster  from  which  the  Hindu  metropolis  never 
recovered.  '  Thousands  died  daily,'  writes  the 
historian  of  Bengal.  '  The  living,  wearied  with 
burying  the  dead,  threw  their  bodies  into  the  river. 
This  created  a  stench  which  only  increased  the 
disease.  The  governor  was  carried  off  by  the 
plague.  The  city  was  at  once  depopulated,  and 
from  that  day  to  this  it  has  been  abandoned.  At 
the  time  of  its  destruction  it  had  existed  two  thou- 
sand years.  It  was  the  most  magnificent  city  in 
India,  of  immense  extent,  and  filled  with  noble 
buildings.  It  was  the  capital  of  a  hundred  kings, 
the  seat  of  wealth  and  luxury.  In  one  year  was  it 
humbled  to  the  dust,  and  now  it  is  the  abode  only 
of  tigers  and  monkeys.' '^'^ 

In  1770  the  rainy  season  brought  relief,  and 
before  the  end  of  September  the  province  reaped 
an  abundant  harvest.''*'  But  the  relief  came  too  late 
to  avert  depopulation.  Starving  and  shelterless 
crowds  crawled  despairingly  from  one  deserted  vil- 

^^  The  precise  nature  of  this  calamity  is  uncertain  ;  probably 
pestilence  proceeding  from  famine. 

^^  History  of  Bengal,  by  J.  C.  Marshman.  Third  edition.  Scram- 
pore. 

""'  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  ol  Directors, 
dated  241I1  December  1770,  para.  22.     I.  O.  R. 


30  "J'lIE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

lage  to  another,  in  a  vain  search  for  food,  or  a  resting- 
place  in  which  to  hide  themselves  from  the  rain. 
The  endemics  incident  to  the  season  were  thus 
spread  over  the  whole  country,  and  until  the  close 
of  the  year  disease  continued  so  prevalent  as  to 
form  a  subject  of  communication  from  the  Govern- 
ment in  Benofal  to  the  Court  of  Directors/^  Millions 
of  famished  wretches  died  in  the  struggle  to  live 
through  the  few  intervening  weeks  that  separated 
them  from  the  harvest,  their  last  gaze  being  probably 
fixed  on  the  densely  covered  fields  that  would  ripen 
only  a  little  too  late  for  them.  *  It  is  scarcely  pos- 
sible,' write  the  Council  at  the  beginning  of  the 
September  reaping,  '  that  any  description  could  be 
an  exaggeration.'  ^^ 

Three  months  later  another  bountiful  harvest, 
the  great  rice  crop  of  the  year,  was  gathered  in. 
Abundance  returned  to  Bengal  as  suddenly  as 
famine  had  swooped  down  upon  it,  and  in  reading 
some  of  the  manuscript  records  of  December,  it  is 
difficult  to  realize  that  the  scenes  of  the  preceding 
ten  months  have  not  been  hideous  phantasmagoria 
or  a  long  troubled  dream.  On  Christmas  Eve  the 
Council  in  Calcutta  wrote  home  to  the  Court  of 
Directors  that  the  scarcity  had  entirely  ceased  and, 
incredible  as  it  may  seem,  that  unusual  plenty  had 
returned.  '  There  is  already,'  they  added,  '  a  great 
quantity   of  grain   in  this  place,   and  a  prospect  of 

*'  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
dated  12th  December  1770,  para.  9.     I.  O.  R. 

*2  Letter  from  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  Fort  William,  nth 
September  1770,  para.  4.     L  O.  R. 


THE  RETURN  OE  RLE  XT  Y.  31 

much  more  abundance  in  a  short  time.'"'''  So 
generous  had  been  the  harvest,  that  the  Govern- 
ment proposed  at  once  to  lay  in  its  mihtary  stores 
for  the  ensuing  year,  and  expected  to  obtain  them 
'  at  a  very  cheap  rate.' 

The  season  of  scarcity  was  indeed  past.""  In 
1771  the  harvests  again  proved  plentiful;^'  in  1772 
they  were  so  superabundant,  that  the  land  revenue 
could  not  be  realized  in  consequence  of  the  exces- 
sively low  price  of  grain  i"**^  and  in  1773,  notwith- 
standing a  temporary  apprehension  for  the  crops 
in  the  northern  districts,*'  the  earth  again  yielded 
unwonted  increase,  and  exportation  went  on  briskl)- 
to  less  favoured  provinces. ^^ 

The  famine  of  1770  was  therefore  a  one  year's 
famine,  caused  by  the  general  failure  of  the  Decem- 
ber harvest  in  1769,  and  intensified  by  a  partial 
failure  of  the  crops  of  the  previous  year  and  the 
following  spring.  In  the  preceding  year,  1768-69, 
high  prices  had  ruled  ;  but  there  had  been  nothing 
like  famine,  nor  even  a  deficiency  in  the  crops  suffi- 
cient to  materially  affect  the  rents.^'*      On  the  other 

■•'  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
dated  24th  December  1770,  para.  22.  See  also  a  letter  from  the 
same  to  the  same,  dated  12th  December  1770,  para.  9.     I.  O.  R. 

••*  Public  Consultation  of  the  14th  November  1770.     I.  O.  R. 

^''  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
dated  loth  January  1772,  para.  16,  etc. 

■"'  Letter  from  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  lolh  Novcml)or  1773. 
para.  33.     Also  Letter  of  the  30th  December.     L  O.  R. 

^'  Letter  of  the  loth  November  1773,  para.  32.     I.  O.  R. 

''*'  Letter  of  the  30th  December  1773,  para.  9.     I.  O.  R. 

*'•'  I  deduce  this  from  the  Revenue  Statements  of  176S-69.  Tlie 
local  officers,  as  usual,  are  loud  in  their  forebodinj^s;  but,  on  the  whole, 


32  rilE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

hand,  the  one  year  of  scarcity  was  followed  by 
three  years  of  extraordinary  abundance,  and  nature 
exerted  herself  to  the  utmost  to  repair  the  damage 
she  had  done. 

That  she  failed  to  do  so,  the  records  of  the  next 
thirty  years  mournfully  attest.  Plenty  had  indeed 
returned,  but  it  had  returned  to  a  silent  and  de- 
serted province.  Before  the  end  of  May  1770, 
one-third  of  the  population  was  officially  calcu- 
lated to  have  disappeared ;  in  June  the  deaths  were 
returned  '  as  six  is  to  sixteen  of  the  whole  inhabit- 
ants;' and  it  was  estimated  that  'one  half  of  the 
cultivators  and  payers  of  revenue  will  perish  with 
hunger.'  During  the  rains  (July  to  October)  the 
depopulation  became  so  .evident  that  the  Govern- 
ment wrote  to  the  Court  of  Directors  in  alarm 
about  '  the  number  of  industrious  peasants  and 
manufacturers  destroyed  by  the   famine."^"     But  it 

the  land-tax  was  'closely'  realized.  Warren  Hastings  in  1772  quoted 
the  receipts  of  the  year  1768-69  as  a  sort  of  standard,  and  took  credit 
for  having  brought  up  the  revenue  after  three  plentiful  years,  and  by 
means,  as  he  confesses,  of  cruel  severity  to  the  same  amount.  In 
1770,  Mahomed  Reza  Khan,  the  Financial  Minister  and  Minister  of 
the  Interior,  recommended  an  increase  of  the  land-tax.  The  sum  he 
proposed  was  ^1,524.567.  The  actual  receipts  in  1768-69  were 
;^i, 525,485.  Had  there  been  any  serious  deficiency  in  the  crops  of 
1768,  the  land-tax  must  have  suffered  (as  it  did  in  1769-70),  and  the 
receipts  of  1768  would  not  have  been  accepted  as  a  standard. 
Again,  had  the  country  in  1769  been  seriously  impoverished  by  a 
scarcity  in  1768,  it  could  not  have  paid  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
land-tax  for  1769-70  as  it  did.  Out  of  a  total  demand  amounting  to 
_;^i, 380,269,  only  ^65,355  were  remitted  during  the  famine  year. — 
Letters  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
dated  iith  September  1770,  para.  5  ;  of  the  3d  November  1772,  para. 
6  ;  and  other  documents.     I.  O.  R. 

'•"  Mr.  James  Alexander,  Supervisor  of  Bahar ;  Consultations  of 


DEPOT  ULATI  ON.  33 

was  not  till  cultivation  commenced,  for  the  follow- 
ing year  (1771),  that  the  practical  consequences 
began  to  be  felt.  It  was  then  discovered  that  the 
remnant  of  the  population  would  not  suffice  to 
till  the  land.  Packet  after  packet  came  home, 
laden  with  the  details  of  ruin.  Indeed,  whatever 
may  be  the  subject  of  a  communication  to  begin 
with,  it  seems  irresistibly  to  slide  into  the  great 
topic  of  the  day ;  and  in  one  of  two  letters  bearing 
the  same  date,  and  both  adverting  to  the  depopula- 
tion, the  Council  plainly  avow  that  there  has  been 
'  such  a  mortality  and  desertion  among  the  ryots,  as 
to  deprive  the  (revenue)  farmers  of  the  possibility  of 
receiving  the  rents'  in  arrear.®^  Notwithstanding 
the  abundant  crops  of  1771,  the  country  continued 
to  fall  out  of  tillage  ;  and  the  commissioners  ap- 
pointed in  1772  tovisit  the  various  districts,  found 
the  finest  part  of  the  province  '  desolated  by  famine,' 
'  the  lands  abandoned,  and  the  revenue  falling  to 
decay.' "  Two  years  after  the  dearth  Warren 
Hastings  wrote  an  elaborate  report  on  the  state 
of  Bengal.  He  had  made  a  progress  through  a 
large  portion  of  the  country,  instituting  the  most 
searching    inquiries    by    the    way,    and    he    delibe- 

thc  9th  June  1770,  and  Mr.  Ducaixl  of  Purneah,  i6th  February 
1770.     I.  O.  R. 

^'  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Direc- 
tors, dated  12th  February  177 1,  para.  44.  In  another  letter,  same 
date,  they  speak  of  'the  great  reduction  of  people.'  In  one,  a  few 
months  before,  they  lament  '  the  number  of  industrious  peasants  and 
manufacturers  destroyed  by  the  famine.'     I.  O.  R. 

■'-  Letter  from  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  5th  September  1772, 
para.  10.      I.  O.  R. 

VOL.   I.  C 


34  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

rately  states  the  loss  as  '  at  least  one-third  of  the 
inhabitants.'"  This  estimate  has  been  accepted 
by  all  official  and  by  the  most  accurate  non- 
official  writers.'^*  It  represents  an  aggregate  of  in- 
dividual suffering  which  no  European  nation  has 
been  called  upon  to  contemplate  within  historic 
times.  Twenty  years  after  the  famine  the  remain- 
ing population  was  estimated  at  from  twenty-four 
to  thirty  millions ;  and  we  cannot  help  arriving  at 
the  conclusion,  that  the  failure  of  a  single  crop,  fol- 
lowing a  year  of  scarcity,  had  within  nine  months 
swept  away  ten  millions  of  human  beings. 

The  question  as  to  who  was  responsible  for 
their  death,  is  the  first  idea  that  suggests  itself  to 
an  Englishman  of  the  present  day  :  it  would  have 
been  one  of  the  last  to  strike  either  our  country- 
men or  the  natives  of  India  at  the  period  of  which 
I  write.  Until  1772  Bengal  was  regarded  by  the 
British  public  in  the  light  of  a  vast  warehouse, 
in  which  a  number  of  adventurous  Enelishmen 
carried  on  business  with  great  profit  and  on  an  enor- 
mous scale. ^^     That  a  numerous  native  population 

^^  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Direc- 
tors, dated  3d  November  1772,  para.  6.  This  admirable  letter,  which 
gives  a  vivid  and  accurate  description  of  the  whole  countiy,  and 
system  of  rural  administration  at  the  beginning  of  Warren  Hastings* 
rule,  is  printed  in  full  in  the  Appendix-  A,  under  the  title  of  *  Ben- 
gal Portrayed,  A.D.  1772.' 

5*  For  example,  by  Mill  (vol.  iii.  p.  486,  ed.  1840)  and  by  Auber 
(Rise  and  Progress,  vol.  i.  p.  414,  ed.  1837). 

^5  How  tardy  and  uncertain  were  the  steps  by  which  the  internal 
government  of  Bengal  passed  into  English  hands,  will  be  shown  in 
a  subsequent  chapter  on  '  The  Company's  First  Attempts  at  Rural 
Administration.' 


WHO   WAS  TO  BLAME  i  35 

existed,  they  were  aware ;  but  this  they  considered 
an  accidental  circumstance,  and  one  in  which  they 
took  rather  less  interest  than  we  at  present  feel  in 
the  aborigines  of  Natal  or  Sierra  -  Leone.  The 
orator  who  was  destined  to  clothe  the  unrealized 
millions  of  India  in  flesh  and  blood,  and  to  set 
them  breathing  and  suffering  before  the  British 
nation,  had  taken  his  seat  for  Wendover  barely 
four  years  before  the  calamity  occurred,  and  was 
still  known  as  a  literary  Irishman  who  had  got 
into  Parliament  as  private  secretary  to  a  noble 
lord.  To  the  native  mind,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
question  of  responsibility  probably  would  not  occur 
in  such  cases  even  at  this  hour,  except  within  the 
narrow  circle  influenced  and  instructed  by  the 
Anoflo-Indian  Press.  The  loss  of  life  was  ac- 
cepted  as  a  natural  and  logical  consequence  of  the 
loss  of  the  crop.  The  earth  had  yielded  no  food  ; 
and  so  the  people,  in  the  ordinary  and  legitimate 
course  of  things,  died. 

But  an  Englishman,  reading  that  tragical  story 
at  the  present  day,  cannot  rest  content  with  this. 
It  is  just  to  add  that  neither  were  the  English 
Council  in  Calcutta  satisfied  to  do  so.  At  an  early 
period  they  issued  proclamations  against  hoarding 
or  monopolizing  grain,  and  took  much  trouble  in 
seeing  that  their  edict   received  due  effect.'"     Of 


*^  The  precise  date  at  which  these  measures  were  introduced  docs 
not  transpire  in  the  records.  They  are  frequently  referred  to,  how- 
ever, e.d.  :  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of 
Directors,  dated  9th  March  1772,  paras.  46  and  47  ;  letter  of  the  5th 


36  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  real  value  of  this  measure  I  shall  have  after- 
wards to  speak  ;  but  there  is  ample  evidence  to 
show  that  its  projectors  conscientiously  devised  it 
as  a  specific  for  the  disease.  They  also  laid  an 
embargo  on  the  exportation  of  grain,  and  thus  en- 
deavoured, according  to  their  lights,  to  make  the 
most  of  the  scanty  stock  of  food  in  the  province. 
Mention  is  likewise  made  of  public  contributions 
and  the  importation  of  rice.  But  these  operations 
were  conducted  on  a  painfully  inadequate  scale. 
Districts  in  which  men  were  dying  at  the  rate  of 
twenty  thousand  a  month  received  allotments  of 
a  hundred  and  fifty  rupees.  A  provincial  council 
gravely  considers  and  magnanimously  sanctions  a 
grant  of  ten  shillings  worth  of  rice  per  diem  for 
a  starving  population  numbering  four  hundred 
thousand  souls;"  and  the  council,  after  being 
warned  that  *  one-half  the  cultivators  and  payers 
of  revenue  will  perish  with  hunger,'  fixed  the  con- 
tribution by  the  Company  towards  the  sustenance 
of  thirty  millions  of  people  during  six  months,  at 
^4000.^^  Any  expenditure  above  this  sum  must 
be  defrayed,  they  stipulated,  by  the  native  gran- 
dees.    The  latter  seem  to  have  done  their  duty  so 

September  1772,  para.  5.  The  Home  authorities  laid  quite  as  much 
stress  on  these  edicts  as  the  Council  in  Bengal  did,  and  ordered  an 
official  inquiry  into  alleged  breaches  of  them  in  the  several  districts. 
I.  O.  R. 

^"  Letter  of  the  Supervisor  of  Rungpore,  dated  26th  September 
1770.  Consultation  Prov.  Council,  JMoorshedabad,  4th  October. 
I.  O.  R. 

58  Letter  from  Mr.  Becher,  Resident  at  the  Durbar,  dated  24th 
December  1770.     Petition  of  the  Naib  Diwan,  ist  February'  1771. 


STATE   CHARITY  GRUDGED.  37 

far  as  their  means  permitted/''  To  the  Company's 
^4000  they  added  £\']qo,  and  made  themselves 
Hable  for  any  extra  expense  that  might  be  incurred. 
The  total,  however,  proved  wholly  insufficient  to 
touch  the  evil,  and  before  the  managers  of  the  fund 
were  aware,  ^15,000  had  been  expended  in  impor- 
tation, besides  ^3100  of  supplementary^  charity  in 
Beerbhoom  and  the  other  frontier  districts.*^"  Much 
confusion  and  some  recrimination  resulted  from  this 
excess  of  expenditure,  rendering  it  difficult  to  ascer- 
tain the  amount  contributed  by  the  State.  But,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  native  princes  had  made  them- 
selves responsible  for  the  surplus ;  on  the  other, 
the  Secret  Committee,  considering  the  large  sums 
the  natives  had  already  given,  recommended  that 
they  should  not  be  called  upon  for  more ;  and 
finally,  we  are  assured  that  the  total  disbursed  from 
the  Company's  treasury  amounted  to  ^6000.^* 
Assuming  that  the  ^3000  in  the  western  districts 
was  in  addition  to  this,  the  utmost  that  the  Coun- 
cil, when  pressed  by  the  Court  of  Directors  as  to 
Government  relief  efforts,  could  show  was  a  distri- 
bution of  ^9000  among  thirty  millions  of  people, 
of  whom  six  in  every  sixteen  were  officially  ad- 
mitted to  have  perished." 

''^  Note  by  the  Secret  Committee,  ist  February  1771.  Report  on 
Mahomed  Reza  Khan's  trial,  1772. 

^^  Petition  of  the  Naib  Diwan. 

"'  Note  by  the  Secret  Committee,  ist  February  177 1.     I.  O.  R. 

•'-  Add  to  this  the  native  subscription  of  ^4700,  and  we  get  a 
total  of  ^13,700  from  all  sources.  The  sale  of  imported  rice  returned 
a  profit  of  ^6759,  which  must  be  deducted  from  the  general  outlay. 
—  Momonmduin  on  rice  salos,  i?t  Fch!u;ii\    I7~i.     TIu-  .ici-ounts  ;iie 

8833S 


38  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

This  sum  represents  the  total  distributed  in 
charity  and  allotted  for  importing  grain.  Indeed, 
when  we  turn  to  the  latter  operation,  a  scene  of 
corruption  and  heartlessness  is  disclosed,  which 
raises  suspicions  as  to  whether  the  pittance  nomi- 
nally granted  by  Government  ever  reached  the 
sufferers.  The  whole  administration  was  accused 
of  dealing  in  grain  for  its  private  advantage.  It 
was  in  vain  that  the  Court  of  Directors  wrote  one 
indignant  letter  after  another,  demanding  the  names 
of  the  culprits.  No  satisfactory  investigation  was 
ever  made  ;  and  the  native  agents  of  the  governing 
body  remain  to  this  day  under  the  charge  of  carry- 
ing off  the  husbandman's  scanty  stock  at  arbitrary 
prices,  stopping  and  emptying  boats  that  were 
importing  rice  from  other  provinces,  and  '  compel- 
ling the  poor  ryots  to  sell  even  the  seed  requisite 
for  the  next  harvest.'"''  Not  without  reason  does 
the  Court  express  its  suspicion  that  the  guilty 
parties  '  could  be  no  other  than  persons  of  some 
rank '  in  its  own  service  ;  and,  curious  to  relate,  the 
only  high  official  who  was  brought  to  trial  for  the 
offence  was  the  native  Minister  of  Finance  who  had 
stood  forth  to  expose  the  mal-practices  of  the  Eng- 
lish administration.  It  is  fair  to  add  that  he  was 
acquitted." 

very  confused,  and  I  have  given  the  Council  the  benefit  of  any  doubt- 
ful point. 

•53  Letters  from  the  Court  of  Directors  to  the  President  and 
Council  in  Bengal,  dated  loth  April  1771,  28th  August  177 1,  etc. 
I.  O.  R. 

^^  Mahomed  Reza  Khan.     The  investigation  of  the  case  against 


OTHER  MEASURES   WITHHELD.  39 

The  only  other  reHef  measures  proposed  were 
the  movement  of  the  troops  from  the  afflicted  parts, 
and  the  remission  of  the  land-tax.  The  first  was 
not  carried  out,  on  pretence  of  general  orders  from 
home,  —  orders  which  a  powerful  administration 
would  have  suspended  during  so  exceptional  a  year. 
The  heat  of  the  weather  was  also  enlarged  upon 
and  unfounded  apprehensions  were  expressed  of  the 
political  danger  incident  to  such  a  change.  The 
troops  were  marched,  however,  from  one  famine- 
stricken  part  to  another,  the  movement  being  re- 
presented to  the  king  as  made  for  his  benefit ;  and 
so  far  from  the  English  administration  having  laid 
in  a  sufficient  stock  of  grain  for  the  army  at  the 
commencement  of  the  famine,  the  peasantry  com- 
plained that  the  military  wrung  from  them  their 
last  chance  of  subsistence." 

Remissions  of  the  land-tax  and  advances  to  the 
husbandmen,  although  constantly  urged  by  the  local 
officials,  received  little  practical  effect.  In  a  year 
when  thirty-five  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population 
and  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  cultivators  perished,  not 
five  per  cent,  of  the  land-tax  was  remitted,  and  ten 
per  cent,  was  added  to  it  for  the  ensuing  year 
(1770-71)." 

the  Rajah  Schitab  Roy  was  a  public  amende  for  his  apprehension 
rather  than  a  trial. 

^*  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
dated  9th  May  1770,  para.  3.  Correspondence  of  Mr.  Alexander, 
Supervisor  of  Patna,  General  Sir  Robert  Barker,  Colonel  Galliez, 
Captain  Harper  ;  and  Consultations,  May  and  June  1770.  The  failure 
of  certain  efforts  to  import  grain  for  the  troops  also  appears.     I.  O.  R. 

"■'  For  the  severities  practised,  see  Appendix  A,  '  Hcn;;al  Portrayed 


40  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

To  those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  efforts  of 
the  Bengal  Government  during  the  recent  Orissa 
famine,  this  catalogue  of  relief  measures  in  1 770  will 
appear  inhumanely  inadequate.  But  they  should  be 
careful  not  to  over-estimate  either  the  good  effects  of 
such  measures,  or  the  evil  effects  of  their  absence. 
In  a  country  so  devoid  of  the  means  of  intercom- 
munication and  transport  as  Bengal  then  was,  and 
as  Orissa  still  is,  no  human  efforts  can  avail  much 
after  a  famine  has  once  set  in.  According  to  the 
Bengali  proverb,  it  is  watering  the  top  of  a  tree 
whose  roots  are  cut."  All  such  attempts  have 
proved,  and  will  continue  to  prove,  insufficient ; 
and  their  inadequacy  will  appear  more  or  less 
appalling,  in  proportion  as  the  public  gaze  is  more 
or  less  steadily  fixed  upon  them.  Thrice  during 
the  last  hundred  years  has  a  famine,  in  the  strong 
Indian  sense  of  the  word,  visited  the  Northern 
Presidency.  In  1770  the  English  Government 
knew  very  little  about  the  country,  and  did  still 
less  for  its  inhabitants.  Yet,  in  spite  of  efforts  to 
exaggerated^  what  was  in  sober  truth  more  than 
sufficiently  sad,  the  Council  at  Calcutta  escaped,  so 
far  as  regards  the  scale  of  their  charities,  without 

in  1773  ;'  letters  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of 
Directors,  dated  nth  September  1770,  3d  November  1772,  etc. 
Different  letters  represent  different  remissions.  Before  September 
1770  the  balance  was  only  .^{^80,332  ;  it  was  afterwards  reduced  to 
^65,355  out  of  a  total  demand  of  ;^  1,380,269. 

^''  '  Gora  katiya  agaya  jal  d/iala.'' 

**  Warren  Hastings  complained  of  such  efforts  as  early  as 
November  1772.     Letter  to  the  Court  of  Directors. 


B UT  SUCH  MEASURES  AL  \VA  YS  INADEQ  UA  TE.  4 1 

the  faintest  censure/'''  In  1837-38  the  State  efforts 
were  more  extended,  but  they  were  under  the 
observation  of  an  Anglo-Indian  press,  and  the 
Government  received  no  lenient  handling/''  At 
that  time  British  public  opinion  in  Bengal  merely 
meant  the  sentiments  of  the  Anglo-Indian  com- 
munity and  its  organs  ;  but  since  the  country  passed 
directly  under  the  Crown,  the  public  opinion  of 
England  has  been  brought  to  bear  directly  on  its 
great  dependency,  and  English  praise  or  blame 
in  Bengal  is  no  longer  the  praise  or  blame  of  a 
small  section  of  our  countrymen  resident  in  India, 
but  of  the  English  nation.  In  1866,  therefore,  the 
inadequacy  of  the  Government  efforts,  although 
carried  out  upon  a  scale  and  with  a  zeal  never 
previously  displayed,  was  patent  not  merely  to  the 
Anglo-Indian  press,  but  to  the  whole  English  people. 
The  benefits  of  this  scrutiny,  although  occasion- 
ally unpalatable  and  on  rare  occasions  unjust  to 
Indian  administrators,  have  nowhere  been  more 
conspicuous  than  in  the  history  of  the  recent  famine. 
The  analogy  it  presents  to  the  calamity  of  1770  is 
in  many  points  striking.  In  both  cases,  the  im- 
mediate cause  of  the  dearth  was  the  premature 
cessation  of  the  autumnal  rains,  resulting  in  the 
eeneral   failure  of  the    December  harvest   and    the 

*"  The  Court  seemed  well  satisfied  with  the  relief  measures  of  the 
Council,  but  reproached  it  with  conniving  at  the  monopoly  and 
private  trade  in  grain. 

'"  In  the  Calcutta  and  Agra  newspapers  of  that  day.  One  of  the 
most  valuable  memorials  of  the  famine  is  the  Diary  of  an  Invalid  on 
his  Journey  down  the  Ganges,  by  J.  O'B.  Saunders,  Ksq.,  ;i  well- 
known  Indian  journalist. 


42  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

partial  failure  of  the  spring  crops.  In  both  cases, 
the  Government  failed  to  perfectly  appreciate,  or  to 
deal  with  the  true  character  of  the  calamity  until 
the  suffering  amounted  to  actual  starvation.  In 
both  cases,  the  general  grain-stock  in  the  province 
seems  to  have  been  below  the  average  at  the  com- 
mencement ;  and  in  both,  an  abundant  September 
harvest  came  to  the  relief  of  the  people  and  the 
ensuing  December  crop  brought  the  famine  to  a 
close.  Even  as  regards  the  maximum  price  reached 
the  analogy  holds  good,  in  each  case  rice  having 
risen  in  general  to  nearly  twopence,  and  in  par- 
ticular places  to  fourpence,  a  pound ;  and  in  each 
the  quoted  rates  being  for  a  brief  period  in  several 
isolated  localities  merely  nominal,  no  food  existing 
in  the  market,  and  money  altogether  losing  its  inter- 
changeable value.'^  In  both,  the  people  endured 
silently  to  the  end,  with  a  fortitude  that  casual 
observers  of  a  different  temperament  and  widely 
dissimilar  race  may  easily  mistake  for  apathy,  but 
which  those  who  lived  among  the  sufferers  are  un- 
able to  distinguish  from  qualities  that  generally  pass 
under  a  more  honourable  name." 

"1  Papers,  etc.,  relative  to  the  famine  (1866)  presented  to  Parlia- 
ment by  Her  Majesty's  command  :  Part  i.  p.  345.  Letter  of  Mr. 
Becher,  Resident  at  the  Durbar,  dated  i8th  June  1770.  Representa- 
tion of  the  Naib  Diwan,  1st  February  1771.  The  Cook's  Chronicle 
of  Beerbhoom  (Appendix  C). 

''-  During  1866,  when  the  famine  was  severest,  I  superintended 
public  instruction  throughout  the  south-west  division  of  Lower 
Bengal,  including  Orissa.  The  subordinate  native  officers,  about 
eight  hundred  in  number,  behaved  with  a  steadiness,  and,  when 
called  upon,  with  a  self-abnegation  beyond  praise.  Many  of  them 
ruined   their    health.      One   died   while   on   circuit,   almost    in    his 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  FRIVAl'E  ENTERFRISE.    43 

But  here  the  analogy  ends.  In  1770,  the 
Government,  by  interdicting  what  it  was  pleased  to 
term  the  monopoly  of  grain,  prevented  prices  from 
rising  at  once  to  their  natural  rates.  The  province 
had  a  certain  amount  of  food  in  it  and  this  food 
had  to  last  nine  months.  Private  enterprise  if  left 
to  itself  would  have  stored  up  the  general  supply 
at  the  harvest,  with  a  view  to  realizing  a  larger 
profit  at  a  later  period  in  the  scarcity.  Prices 
would  in  consequence  have  immediately  risen,  com- 
pelling the  population  to  reduce  their  consumption 
from  the  very  beginning  of  the  dearth.  The 
general  stock  would  thus  have  been  husbanded  and 
the  pressure  equally  spread  over  the  whole  nine 
months,  instead  of  being  concentrated  upon  the  last 
six.  The  price  of  grain,  in  place  of  promptly  rising 
to  three-halfpence  a  pound  as  in  1865-66,  continued 
at  three-farthings  during  the  earlier  months  of  the 
famine."  During  the  latter  ones  it  advanced  to  two- 
pence and  in  certain  localities  reached  fourpence.  In 
1866  the  Government  perceived  this.  So  far  from 
arbitrarily  interfering  with,  and  thus  discouraging, 
private  trade,  it  clearly  realized  that  its  only  chance 
was  to  stimulate  private  trade.  In  1770,  respect- 
able men  shrank  from  having  anything  to  do  with 
grain-dealing  :  it  was  impossible  to  traffic  without  a 
stock  ;  it  was  impossible  to  collect  a  stock  without 

palanquin.  The  touching  scenes  of  self-sacrifice  and  humble  heroism 
which  I  witnessed  among  the  poor  villagers  on  my  tours  of  inspection 
will  remain  in  my  memory  till  my  latest  day. 

''^  Representation  of  the  Naib  Diwan. — Consultations,  ist  February 
1771,  Appendix  B. 


44  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  JUiNGAL. 

becoming  amenable  to  the  law.  In  1866,  respect- 
able men  in  vast  numbers  went  into  the  trade ;  for 
Government,  by  publishing  weekly  returns  of  the 
rates  in  every  district,  rendered  the  traffic  both  easy 
and  safe.  Every  one  knew  where  to  buy  grain 
cheapest,  and  where  to  sell  it  dearest,  and  food 
was  accordingly  brought  from  the  districts  that 
could  best  spare  it,  and  carried  to  those  which 
most  urgently  needed  it.  Not  only  were  prices 
equalized  so  far  as  possible  throughout  the  stricken 
parts,  but  the  publicity  given  to  the  high  rates  in 
Lower  Bengal  induced  large  shipments  from  the 
upper  provinces,  and  the  chief  seat  of  the  trade 
became  unable  to  afford  accommodation  for  landing 
the  vast  stores  of  strain  brouo-ht  down  the  river. 
Rice  poured  into  the  affected  districts  from  all 
parts, — railways,  canals,  and  roads  vigorously  doing 
their  duty. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  Government, 
without  the  assistance  and  counsel  of  the  English 
press  in  India,  would  have  struck  out  this  course ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  from  the  very  commencement 
the  press  urged  this  course  upon  the  Government, 
It  is  equally  certain,  that  in  all  the  districts  of  Lower 
Bengal  in  which  a  non-official  class  of  Englishmen 
resided  and  upon  which  English  public  opinion  had 
in  consequence  been  brought  to  bear,  those  measures 
obtained  a  his^h  decree  of  success.  Wherever  the 
English  planter  or  merchant  goes,  roads,  railway's, 
or  canals  are  sure  to  follow  him;  and  wherever  these 
facilities   for   transport    existed,   the   distribution   of 


OR/SSA  ISOLATED  IN  1866.  45 

the  general  grain-stock  took  place  to  an  extent  that 
prevented  scarcity  from  passing  into  famine.''*  But, 
unhappily,  there  was  a  corner  of  Bengal  in  which 
the  non-official  Englishman  seldom  penetrates.  The 
south-western  districts,  comprised  under  the  general 
name  of  Orissa,  possessed  no  English  mercantile 
public,  and  had  never  expressed  any  desire  for  the 
means  of  intercommunication  which  is  the  first 
demand  that  such  a  public  makes.  They  do  not 
belong  to  the  rest  of  the  province  either  geographi- 
cally or  historically,  and  no  attempt  had  been  made 
to  unite  them  with  it.'^  As  far  back  as  the  records 
extend,  Orissa  has  produced  more  grain  than  it  can 
use.'''  It  is  an  exporting,  not  an  importing  province, 
sending  away  its  surplus  grain  by  sea,  and  neither 
requiring  nor  seeking  any  communication  with 
Lower  Bengal  by  land.  During  the  earlier  months 
of  the  scarcity  it  was  known  to  have  suffered  like 
the  rest  of  the  province ;  but  neither  the  public  nor 
the  Government  were  aware  that  a  greater  propor- 
tion of  the  crops  had  been  lost  in  Orissa  than  in 
the  other  districts ; "  and  the  native  merchants, 
relying   on    the   general    superabundance  of  grain. 

^■*  That  there  is  a  practical  distinction  between  scarcity  and 
famine,  and  a  well-recognised  point  at  which  the  former  passes  into 
llie  latter,  the  highest  authorities  acknowledge. — Papers,  etc.,  relating 
to  the  famine  in  Bengal,  presented  to  Parliament.    Vol.  i.  p.  364.    Folio. 

^*  Famine  Commissioners'  Report  (1866),  Part  i.  sees.  32,  46, 
412,  etc. 

^^  Famine  Commissioners'  Report  (1866),  Part  i.  sec.  47,  etc. 

"  Indeed,  it  was  impossible  to  estimate  the  return,  as  the  Com- 
missioners truly  observe,  till  the  grain  was  threshed  out  in  January  ; 
the  amount  of  straw  being,  under  the  circumstances,  a  fallacious  index. 
— Report,  Part  i.  sec.  112. 


46  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

while  curtailing  their  export  transactions  saw  no 
necessity  for  importing/**  Towards  the  middle  of 
February,  however,  it  began  to  be  perceived  that 
there  was  something  special  in  the  condition  of 
Orissa.  The  truth  was,  that  the  abundant  importa- 
tion and  distribution  which  had  tended  to  make 
good  the  failure  of  the  harvest  in  the  rest  of  the 
province  had  never  reached  Orissa.  No  one  had 
suspected  that  it  would  pay  to  carry  grain  by  a  long 
sea  route  to  districts  that  have  always  a  large 
quantity  to  export,  and  which,  long  after  the  rest 
of  the  province  had  begun  its  preparations  for  a 
year  of  famine,  allowed  a  million  and  a  half  pounds 
of  the  precious  commodity  to  leave  its  shores.  In 
March,  when  at  length  it  became  generally  under- 
stood that  Orissa  was  destitute  of  rice,  exportation 
and  importation  were  alike  impossible.  The  south- 
west monsoon  had  set  in.  The  harbours  of  Orissa, 
never  open  more  than  a  part  of  the  year,  had 
become  impracticable.  The  only  landward  route 
was  wholly  unfit  for  the  transport  of  sufficient  food 
for  the  country,  and  the  doomed  population  found 
themselves  utterly  isolated,  '  in  the  condition  of 
passengers  in  a  ship  without  provisions.'  ^^ 

^^  The  general  idea,  both  among  the  best  informed  officials  and 
non-officials,  was,  that  large  private  stores  existed  in  the  hands  of 
speculators.  '  The  populace  held  it  very  decidedly ;'  and  the  Com- 
missioner thought  there  was  '  enough  to  supply  the  market  for  a 
couple  of  years.'  In  the  total  absence  of  a  system  of  rural  statistics, 
there  was  no  evidence  to  controvert  these  views. — Report,  Part  i. 
sees.  192,  193,  195,  196,  etc. 

"'^  Famine  Report  :  '  On  all  the  coast  of  Orissa,  False  Point 
excepted'  (and  its  own  peculiar  difficulties  the  Commissioners  else- 


BENGAL  ISOLATED  IN  1770.  47 

This  condition  was  precisely  that  in  which  the 
whole  province  of  Lower  Bengal  found  itself  in 
1770.  The  want  of  means  of  intercommunication 
and  transport  rendered  distribution  impossible,  even 
if  Government  had  not  deterred  private  merchants 
from  undertaking  the  task.  Importation  on  an 
adequate  scale  was  impossible  for  the  same  reason. 
A  single  fact  speaks  volumes  as  to  the  isolation  of 
each  district.  An  abundant  harvest,  we  are  re- 
peatedly told,  was  as  disastrous  to  the  revenues  as 
a  bad  one ;  for  when  a  large  quantity  of  grain  had 
to  be  carried  to  market  the  cost  of  carriage  swal- 
lowed up  the  price  obtained.^  Indeed,  even  if  the 
means  of  intercommunication  and  transport  had 
rendered  importation  practicable,  the  province  had 
at  that  time  no  money  to  give  in  exchange  for  food. 
Not  only  had  its  various  divisions  a  separate  cur- 
rency which  would  pass  nowhere  else  except  at  a 
ruinous  exchange,^^  but  in  that  unfortunate  year 
Bengal  seems  to  have  been  utterly  drained  of  its 

where  explain),  'vessels  of  the  ordinary  size  could  only  lie  outside, 
exposed  to  the  full  force  of  the  sea,  and  unload  very  slowly  and  with 
extreme  difficulty  during  breaks  of  the  boisterous  monsoon  weather.' 
— Sec.  290,  Part  i.  Several  vessels  were  wrecked  or  lost  their  cargo 
in  the  attempt. 

^^  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Direc- 
tors, dated  loth  November  1773,  para.  33.  Autobiography  of  the 
Honourable  Robert  Lindsay,  Collector  of  Sylhet,  1778  88,  in  the 
'  Lives  of  the  Lindsays,'  by  Lord  Lindsay,  vol.  iii.  p.  207.  8vo. 
London,  1849. 

'^  For  example,  the  Narainy  rupee  of  Bahar,  the  cowrie  currency 
of  Sylhet  (of  which  little  shells  more  than  2500  went  to  a  shilling), 
etc. — Bengal  letter,  dated  loth  November  1773,  para.  4.  I.  O.  R. 
Proceedings  in  the  Public  Department,  Fort  William,  October  24. 
1792.     C.  O.  R.     Lives  of  the  Lindsays,  vol.  iii.  p.  170,  etc. 


48  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

specie.  Complaints  of  the  deficiency  of  the  currency 
are  so  common  in  the  Manuscript  Records  as  to 
blunt  the  reader's  perception  to  the  public  distress 
implied.  In  1769-70  things  appear  to  have  reached 
their  worst  point.  In  September  1769,  the  total 
balance  in  the  treasury  amounted  to  only  £'X,\'^2, 
and  the  whole  reserve  in  the  Company's  treasure 
chests  to  ;^4679.^^  Its  commercial  agents  could 
not  procure  sufficient  silver  to  make  the  customary 
advances  for  the  investment,  while  private  persons, 
finding  it  impossible  to  recover  even  good  debts  on 
account  of  the  debtor's  inability  to  obtain  coin  to  pay 
them  in,  refused  to  have  any  commercial  dealings, 
and  trade  came  to  a  stand.^  This  was  the  state  of 
affairs  at  the  beginning  of  the  famine ;  towards  the 
end  they  were  if  possible  worse.  In  August  1770, 
the  Council,  while  quite  willing  to  let  Madras  have 
the  usual  supply  for  its  investment,  are  forced  to 
confess  that  they  have  no  specie  by  means  of  which 
to  remit  it^* 

The  absence  of  the  means  of  importation  was 
the  more  to  be  deplored,  as  the  neighbouring  dis- 
tricts could  easily  have  supplied  grain.  In  the  south- 
east a  fair  harvest  had  been  reaped,  except  in 
circumscribed  spots ;  and  we  are  assured  that,  during 
the  famine,  this  part  of  Bengal  was  enabled  to  export 
without  having  to   complain   of  any  deficiency  in 

^2  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Direc- 
tors, dated  25th  September  1769,  para.  125.     I.  O.  R. 

*^  Ibid.  para.  39.     I.  O.  R. 

**  Letter  from  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  25th  August  1770, 
para.  26.     L  O.  R. 


THE  ANCIENT  EFFECTS  OF  FAMINE.  49 

consequence.*^^"  The  north-western  districts  at  first 
seemed  equally  fortunate,  and  the  Central  Commit- 
tee, in  reply  to  the  lamentations  of  the  Supervisor 
of  Bahar,  bitterly  remark  :  '  Your  neighbours,  enjoy- 
ing the  blessing  of  almost  a  plentiful  season,  whilst 
you  are  suffering  the  evils  of  dearth  and  famine, 
exhibits  but  an  unpleasant  contrast  and  rather 
wounds  the  credit  of  English  policy.'*^  Indeed, 
no  matter  how  local  a  famine  mieht  be  in  the  last 
century,  the  effects  were  equally  disastrous.  Sylhet, 
a  district  in  the  north-east  of  Bengal,  had  reaped 
unusually  plentiful  harvests  in  1780  and  1 781,  but 
the  next  crop  was  destroyed  by  a  local  inundation, 
and  notwithstanding  the  facilities  for  importation 
afforded  by  water-carriage  one-third  of  the  people 
died.  The  same  thing  took  place  in  1 7S4  when 
two-thirds  of  the  cattle  perished.'" 

In  1866  the  existence  of  an  extensive  trade 
with  Europe  enabled  Bengal,  with  the  exception  of 
Orissa,  to  purchase  as  much  food  from  other  pro- 
vinces as  it  required.  Importation  of  grain  was  a 
profitable  investment  for  capital,  and  capital  flowed 
abundantly  into  that  channel.  The  whole  harvests 
of  Northern  India  were  laid  under  contribution  to 
make  good  the  deficiency  of  a  single  province,  thus 
reducing  the  inevitable  suffering  to  a  minimum,  and 

^^'  Consultations,  2Sth  April  1770,  etc. 

*^  Consultations,  3d  May  1770.  Importation  from  the  north  was 
subsequently  prohibited,  and  high  prices  ruled  there  also. 

8"  Report  of  the  Honourable  Robert  Lindsay,  Collector  of  Sylhet, 
dated  3d  Septaiibcr  1784;  Famine  Report,  1866.  Lives  of  the 
Lindsays,  by  Lord  Lindsay,  vol.  iii.  208  (1849). 

VOL.  L  D 


50  :i'HE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

preventing  the  loss  of  life,  deplorably  great  as  it 
undoubtedly  was  in  isolated  places,  from  anywhere 
amounting  to  depopulation. 

Before  quitting  the  subject  of  dearths  I  wish  to 
explain  the  two  circumstances  which  regulate  their 
intensity,  and  the  method  by  which  they  may  be 
counteracted.  Famine  in  India  is  caused  by  natu- 
ral scarcity,  resulting  from  the  deficiency  of  the 
crops,  and  more  or  less  severe  in  proportion  as  the 
crops  have  been  more  or  less  completely  destroyed. 
Inundations  may  cause  temporary  scarcity,  but  the 
losses  of  low-lying  localities  are  usually  made  up 
by  the  subsequent  abundance  on  the  high  grounds. 
On  the  other  hand,  drought,  when  sufficiently 
intense  to  destroy  the  December  harvest,  results 
in  famine.  The  practical  effects  of  famine  depend, 
however,  on  its  actual  pressure  as  indicated  by  the 
rise  in  prices.  Under  native  government  and  in 
1770  under  the  Company's  first  attempt  at  admini- 
stration, the  actual  pressure  of  a  famine  held  a  direct 
ratio  to  the  natural  scarcity.  If  the  crops  perished 
the  people  died  :  the  actual  pressure  was  in  propor- 
tion to  the  natural  scarcity,  and  the  natural  scarcity 
to  the  actual  pressure.  But  the  whole  tendency 
of  modern  civilisation  is  to  raise  up  intervening 
influences  which  render  the  relation  of  actual  pres- 
sure to  natural  scarcity  less  certain  and  less  direct, 
until  the  two  terms  which  were  once  convertible 
come  to  have  very  little  connection  with  each  other. 
This  is  what  has  taken  place  in  India  during  the 
last  fifty  years,  as  the  two  following  examples  show. 


FAMINES  OF  \^n  AND  1861.  51 

The  north-western  provinces  of  Bengal  have 
twice  been  visited  during  that  period  by  a  season 
of  terrible  drought.  On  both  occasions  the  pro- 
portion of  the  crops  destroyed  appears  to  have 
been  the  same,  and  the  official  estimate  reports  the 
natural  scarcity  as  nearly  equal/"  The  first  took 
place  in  1837,  the  second  in  1860-61.  In  1837, 
India  was  on  the  point  of  being  thrown  unreservedly 
open  to  European  enterprise,  but  the  change  had 
not  taken  place.  Railways  were  not ;  roads  and 
watercourses  were  scarcely  more  numerous  than 
in  the  time  of  Aurun^zebe  ;  non-official  Enoflish 
influence,  and  the  facilities  for  transport  that  such 
influence  everywhere  procures,  were  confined  to  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  great  towns  ;  nor  had  that 
vast  store  of  surplus  capital,  ever  keenly  on  the  look- 
out for  investment,  been  developed,  which  forms 
so  striking  a  feature  in  the  mercantile  economy  of 
Bengal  at  the  present  day.  In  short,  the  break- 
waters which  modern  civilisation  raises  up  between 
natural  scarcity  and  its  actual  pressure  had  not  yet 
been  constructed  and  the  ancient  monotonous  story 
of  starvation  was  repeated.  Notwithstanding  the 
efforts  of  the  Government,  then  presided  over  by 
a  nobleman  of  remarkable  private  humanity,  the 
deaths  rose  to  twelve  hundred  per  diem  in  two  of 
the    principal    towns;'**    in    the    open    country    the 

*'  Colonel  Baird  Smith's  Report. — Papers  presented  to  Parliament 
(1867)  relative  to  the  Bengal  famine.     Folio.     Vol.  i.  p.  230. 

•^^  This  statement  is  based  upon  the  correspondence  of  a  member 
of  the  principal  Relief  Committee.  The  statistics  are  more  fully  given 
in  my  '  Rural  Sketches,'  published  in  Calcutt.u 


52  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

people  perished  by  villac^es,  and  nine  months  of 
famine  left  the  whole  rural  system  disorganized. 
But  during  the  next  quarter  of  a  century  India 
advanced  towards  civilisation  by  forced  marches, 
and  the  drou2:ht  of  i860  found  its  effects  checked 
by  a  hundred  counteracting  influences  unknown  in 
1837.  The  natural  scarcity  was  the  same,  but 
abundance  of  capital  existed  to  buy  food  from 
other  provinces,  and  the  newly  constructed  railways 
with  their  network  of  roads  cheaply  and  rapidly 
effected  its  distribution.  The  Grand  Trunk  Road, 
a  work  of  Roman  solidity,  is  officially  reported  to 
have  been  worn  out  in  fifteen  days;^"  'every  cart, 
bullock,  camel,  donkey,  in  short,  every  means  of 
conveyance  available  in  the  country '  was  pressed 
into  the  service,  and  the  principal  railway  stations 
were  at  length  blocked  up  with  grain.''**  While 
private  enterprise  thus  intervened  between  the 
natural  scarcity  and  the  actual  pressure,  private 
charity  provided  for  that  section  of  the  people 
whose  earnings  just  suffice  to  keep  them  alive  in 
seasons  of  ordinary  fertility  ;  a  section  which  will 
always  be  thrown  upon  the  public  benevolence 
during  a  scarcity,  as  long  as  the  present  relations 
of  labour  and  capital  continue  in  Bengal. 

The  second  example  is  derived  from  the  two 
famines  that  have  visited  the  lower  provinces  in 
1770  and  1866.  In  this  instance  very  little  evi- 
dence   exists    for    comparing    the    natural    scarcity. 

89  Famine  Commissioners'  Report  (1866),  Part  i.  para.  j"^. 

90  Idem. 


FAMINES  OF  1770  AND  1S66.  53 

But  we  know  that  in  1866  one  corner  of  Bengal — 
Orissa — was,  so  far  as  the  intervening  influences 
which  prevent  natural  scarcity  passing  into  actual 
pressure,  exactly  in  the  position  of  the  whole  pro- 
vince in  1770.  In  these  similarly  situated  parts  the 
actual  pressure,  as  indicated  by  the  price  of  rice, 
was  precisely  the  same  in  both  famines,  the  maxi- 
mum being  fourpence  and  the  average  over  two- 
pence a  pound.  It  should  be  remembered,  however, 
that  silver  was  dearer  then  than  now.  The  propor- 
tion of  the  crops  lost  seems  also  to  have  been  equal. 
In  the  districts  of  Orissa  which  suffered  most  in 
1866  and  in  Rajmahal,  one  of  the  districts  which 
suffered  most  in  1770,  the  preceding  harvests  were 
officially  estimated  to  have  yielded  less  than  one- 
half  their  average  produce, ^^  and  any  superiority 
of  the  early  Orissa  harvests  in  1865  to  those  of 
Rajmahal  in  1769  was  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  subsequent  exportations  from  the  Orissa  sea- 
board. It  may  be  inferred,  therefore,  that  the 
natural  scarcity  was  the  same.  The  actual  pressure 
happily  proved  very  different.  In  i  770  the  natural 
scarcity  passed  in  a  direct  and  unmitigated  form 
into  actual  pressure.  Before  the  middle  of  the  year 
ten  millions  of  the  general  population  had  perished  ; 
at  the  end  of  it,  an  official  reports  that  of  a  certain 
poor  class — the  lime-workers — only  five  out  of  on(' 
hundred   and    fifty  were   living,"^   and    one-lhird   of 

°'  Famine  Commissioners'  Report  (1866),  Part  i.  pira.  74.  Re- 
l)ort  of  Mr.  Harwood,  Supervisor  of  Rajmahal,  Consultations,  2Sth 
April  1770,  etc. 

"2  Consultations,  Hlh  I'chruary  1771. 


54  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  country  had  returned  to  jungle.  In  1866,  roads, 
railways,  canals,  toiled  day  and  night  in  bringing 
grain  from  other  provinces,  till  at  length  the  port"'' 
at  which  the  railway  taps  the  river  system  of  Lower 
Bengal  became  unable  to  afford  accommodation  for 
landing  the  unprecedented  cargoes,  and  the  Railway 
Company  had  to  seek  the  assistance  of  the  autho- 
rities to  prevent  native  shipmasters  from  unlading 
on  its  lines  and  sidings.  One  corner  of  Lower 
Benp-al,  however,  continued  in  the  same  isolated 
state  in  1866  in  which  the  whole  province  found 
itself  in  1770,  and  it  was  reserved  for  the  unhappy 
people  of  Orissa  to  experience  what  happens  when 
the  actual  pressure  of  a  dearth  is  equal  to  the 
natural  scarcity,  and  to  illustrate  to  modern  times 
the  meaning  of  the  ancient  word  famine. 

The  preventives  of  famine  belong  to  two  dis- 
tinct classes ;  those  that  tend  to  avert  natural 
scarcity,  and  those  that  are  directed  towards  the 
development  of  intervening  influences  between 
natural  scarcity  and  actual  pressure.  Natural 
scarcity  may  be  averted  either  by  Government 
undertaking  works  of  irrigation  and  drainage  at 
its  own  expense,  or  by  giving  the  landed  classes  a 
permanent  title  to  the  soil, — thus  inducing  them  to 
enter  on  such  works  by  securing  to  them  the  profits. 
Orissa  in  1866  was  in  this  respect  in  the  position  of 
the  whole  of  the  province  in  1770  :  it  had  neither  a 
permanent  settlement''*  nor  any  adequate  irrigation 

*•■'  Kooshtea.     This  incident  took  place  in  my  own  court. 

^'  Just  before  the  famine  commenced,  the  native  landholders  of 


THE  SPECIFICS  FOR  FAMINE.  55 

works  maintained  by  the  State,  and  it  was  the  only 
part  of  Lower  Bengal  in  which  the  scenes  of  1770 
were  re-enacted."' 

The  second  set  of  preventives,  those  that  tend 
to  raise  up  breakwaters  between  natural  scarcity 
and  actual  pressure,  is  a  very  large  one.  Every 
measure  that  helps  towards  the  extension  of  com- 
merce and  the  growth  of  capital,  every  measure 
that  increases  the  facilities  of  transport  and  distri- 
bution, comes  under  this  class.  Whatever  tends 
to  develop  the  natural  resources  of  a  country,  to 
call  forth  a  spirit  of  enterprise  among  its  inhabit- 
ants, to  render  each  part  less  dependent  on  itself, 
and  to  bind  up  the  commonwealth  by  the  ties  of 
mutual  assistance  and  common  interest,  tends  to 
mitigate  the  actual  pressure  of  a  famine.  The 
whole  list  may  be  expressed  by  four  words — 
enliehtened  crovernment  and  modern  civilisation. 
These  are  the  specifics  for  famine.  Where  they 
exist,  scarcity  will  never  result  in  depopulation ; 
where  they  do  not,  the  utniost  endeavours  of 
Government  may  mitigate  but  they  cannot  avert. 
Nevertheless,  the  two  formal  specifics  may  be 
assisted  by  subsidiary  relief  efforts,  such  as  public 
works  and  organized  public  charity. 

Where  natural  scarcity  passes  directly  into 
actual    pressure,    two    exceptional    measures    have 

Bengal  had  represented  the  discouragement  to  cultivation  wliich  the 
postponement  of  a  permanent  settlement  caused  in  Orissa. 

"'•  Except  that  in  1866  there  was  no  cannibalism,  and  the  tot;il 
loss  of  population  in  all  Fiongal  wa?  three-quarters  of  a  million 
instead  of  ten  millions. 


S6  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

been  employed,  with  various  degrees  of  success,  to 
take  the  extreme  edge  off  famine.  The  one  is  an 
embargo  on  exportation,  the  other  is  importation 
at  the  State  expense.  Both  are  dangerous  ex- 
pedients, and  their  success  (when  successful)  im- 
plies that  the  ordinary  laws  of  political  economy 
cannot  be  applied  to  the  case ;  in  other  words,  that 
modern  civilisation  and  enlightened  government 
have  yet  to  begin  their  work.  This  was  the 
condition  of  Lower  Bengal  in  1770  and  of  Orissa, 
its  south-western  corner,  in  1866.^® 

Before  the  commencement  of  1771,  one-third 
of  a  generation  of  peasants  had  been  swept  from 
the  face  of  the  earth  and  a  whole  generation  of 
once  rich  families  had  been  reduced  to  indigence. 
Every  district  reiterated  the  same  tale.  The 
revenue  farmers — a  wealthy  class  who  then  stood 
forth  as  the  visible  government  to  the  common 
people — being  unable  to  realize  the  land-tax,  were 
stripped  of  their  office,  their  persons  imprisoned, 
and  their  lands,  the  sole  dependence  of  their 
families,  re-let.^^  The  ancient  houses  of  Bengal, 
who  had  enjoyed  a  semi-independence  under  the 
Moofhuls  and  whom  the  British  Government  sub- 
sequently  acknowledged  as  the  lords  of  the  soil, 
fared  still  worse.      From  the  year   1770  the  ruin  of 

^'''  The  Famine  Commissioners,  while  admitting  that  cases  may 
occur  in  which  Government  may  wisely  undertake  importation,  deny 
that  it  should  ever  interfere  with  exportation.  I  suspect  Mr.  Mill's 
arguments  apply  to  both  cases. 

^''  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Direc- 
tors, dated  Fort-William,  loth  November  1773.     I-  O-  ^ 


THE  ARISTOCRA CY  R UINED.  5 7 

two-thirds  of  the  old  aristocracy  of  Lower  Bengal 
dates.  The  Maharajah  of  Burdwan,  whose  province 
had  been  the  first  to  cry  out  and  the  last  to  which 
plenty  returned,  died  miserably  towards  the  end  of 
the  famine,  leaving  a  treasury  so  empty  that  the 
heir  had  to  melt  down  the  family  plate,  and  when 
this  was  exhausted  to  beg  a  loan  from  the  Govern- 
ment, in  order  to  perform  his  father's  obsequies.''^ 
Sixteen  years  later,  we  find  the  unfortunate  young 
prince  unable  to  satisfy  the  Government  demands, 
a  prisoner  in  his  own  palace.^'  This  was  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  line  which  had  possessed  houses  and 
lands  along  all  the  principal  routes,  so  that  how- 
ever far  its  chief  might  travel,  he  never  slept  out 
of  his  own  jurisdiction.  The  present  Maharajah 
enjoys  a  revenue  reputed  to  exceed  a  hundred 
thousand  sterling,  and  administers  his  estates  by 
means  of  a  body  of  advisers  that  closely  imitates 
the  Imperial  Council  in  Calcutta.  The  Rajah  of 
Nuddea,  another  powerful  nobleman  of  the  last 
century,^*'"  emerged  from  the  famine  impoverished 
and  in  disgrace,  very  thankful,  it  would  seem,  to 
have  the  management  of  his  estates  taken  out  of 
his  own  hands  and  vested  in  his  son.^^^     The  pro- 

'-"*  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Direc- 
tors, dated  25th  August  1770,  para.  52.     I.  O.  R. 

'•'•'  From  the  Collector  of  Burdwan  to  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated 
i6th  May  1786.     Bn.  R. 

'*"'  An  account  of  this  family  is  preserved  in  the  Kshitisha  Ban- 
savali  Charitam.     Ed.  Berlin,  1852. 

'"'  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of 
Directors,  dated  Fort-William,  loth  November  1773,  paras.  8,  11, 
etc. 


58  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

prietrix  of  Rajshie/"^  a  lady  of  remarkable  talent 
for  public  business,  retained  the  control  of  her 
district ;  but  soon  afterwards,  being  unable  to  pay 
the  revenue,  was  threatened  with  dispossession,  the 
sale  of  her  lands,  and  the  withdrawal  of  her  Govern- 
ment allowance.^"^  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply 
examples.  We  shall  afterwards  view  the  ruin  of 
the  western  districts  more  in  detail.  Meanwhile 
it  is  enough  to  say  that  when  the  local  records 
open,  they  disclose  the  Rajah  of  Beerbhoom  hardly 
permitted  to  pass  the  first  year  of  his  majority 
before  being  confined  for  arrears  of  revenue,  and 
the  venerable  Rajah  of  Bishenpore,  after  weary 
years  of  duress,  let  out  of  prison  only  to  die. 

In  a  country  whose  inhabitants  live  entirely  by 
agriculture,  depopulation  is  always  followed  by  a 
proportionate  area  of  the  land  falling  out  of  tillage. 
Bengal  had  lost  one-third  of  its  people  and  one- 
third  of  its  surface  speedily  became  waste.  Three 
years  after  the  famine,  so  much  land  lay  unculti- 
vated that  the  Council  began  to  devise  measures 
for  tempting  the  subjects  of  native  princes  to 
migrate  into  its  dominions. ^°*  While  the  province 
in  general  was  rack-rented  to  supply  the  pressing 
necessities  of  the  Company  in  England,  Warren 
Hastings  interposed  on  behalf  of  the  frontier,  in 
order  that  there  might  be  such  a  show  of  lenity  as 

^"-  The  Rani  Banwari. 

103  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Direc- 
tors, dated  15th  March  1774,  para.  6. 

'*•*  From  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  loth  November  1773,  para. 
16. 


CULTIVATORS  NOT  TO  BE  BAD.  59 

to  '  procure  a  supply  of  inhabitants  from  the  neij^h- 
bouring  districts  of  the  Nabob  Vizier.'  In  1776 
the  scarcity  of  cultivators  had  completely  transposed 
the  relations  of  landlord  and  tenant  in  Bengal. 
Formerly  there  had  been  more  husbandmen  want- 
ing land  than  could  obtain  holdings;  the  only  means 
of  earning  a  livelihood  was  agriculture  ;  emigration 
was  unknown  ;  the  whole  peasantry  fell  into  the 
power  of  the  landlords  or  revenue-farmers,  and  a 
cry  of  rural  oppression  arose  such  as  has  never  been 
heard  before  or  after.  To  this  state  of  things,  the 
result  of  a  series  of  unusually  plentiful  crops  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century,^^^  the  famine  of  1770  put 
an  end,  and  even  a  new-comer  could  see  that  there 
was  more  land  awaiting  cultivation  than  there  were 
husbandmen  to  till  it.  'In  the  present  state  of  the 
country,'  wrote  Mr.  Francis  in  1776,  'the  ryot  has 
the  advantage  over  the  zemindar.  Where  so  much 
land  lies  waste,  and  so  few  hands  are  left  for  culti- 
vation, the  peasant  must  be  courted  to  undertake 
it.''""  By  degrees  the  agricultural  population  divided 
itself  into  two  classes  :  the  so-called  resident  culti- 
vators'"^  who,  from  attachment  to  their  ancient 
homes,  or,  as  was  much  more  frequently  the  case,  b)- 
reason  of  indebtedness  to  their  landlord,  continued  on 


105  One  year  rice  sold  at  more  than  a  hundred  pounds  for  a 
shilling  ;  and  tradition  relates  that  a  governor  of  Dacca  shut  up  a 
gate  until  the  price  should  again  fall  to  the  lowest  rate  reached  during 
his  reign,  viz.  one  hundred  and  Hfty  pounds  for  a  shilling. 

""^  Minute  by  Mr.  Francis. — Revenue  Consultations  of  the  5th 
November  1776.     1.  O.  R. 

!»■  Khud-kashu 


6o  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  same  estate  as  before  the  famine ;  and  a  more 
adventurous  class,  termed  non-resident  or  vagrant 
cultivators,^"®  who  threw  up  their  previous  holdings 
and  went  in  search  of  new  ones  at  the  lower  rates 
to  which  depopulation  had  reduced  the  market 
value  of  land.  Within  six  years  after  the  famine 
this  classification  had  distinctly  taken  place,  and  the 
non-resident  ryots  who  had  previously  formed  an 
insignificant  and  degraded  order  continued  during 
thirty  years  the  most  prominent  feature  in  the  rural 
system  of  Bengal.  In  old  times,  the  non-resident 
cultivators  wandered  weariedly  through  the  pro- 
vince because  they  could  nowhere  find  land ;  after 
1770,  cultivators  joined  the  non-resident  class  be- 
cause they  could  find  land  everywhere  cheaper  than 
the  old  rates,  and  a  collector,  when  wishing  to 
imply  that  an  English  gentleman  had  received  his 
land  on  advantageous  terms,  briefly  describes  him 
as  z. paikasht  ryot  (non-resident  cultivator). 

For  the  first  fifteen  years  after  the  famine  de- 
population steadily  increased.  During  a  scarcity  it 
is  the  children  on  whom  the  calamity  falls  with  the 
heaviest  weight,  and  until  1785  the  old  died  off 
without  there  being  any  rising  generation  to  step 
into  their  places. ^*'^  To  add  to  the  general  misery 
the  most  violent  feuds  broke  out  among  the  landed 
proprietors.      One-third   of  their  land   lay   unculti- 

^"^  Paikasht.  The  English  renderings  given  above  are  those  of 
Hastings  and  Francis. 

^^'^  In  Beerbhoom,  for  example. — Letter  from  Christopher  Keating, 
Esq.,  Collector,  to  John  Shore,  Esq.,  President  of  the  Board  of  Re- 
venue, dated  3d  July  17S9.     B.  R.  R. 


BENGAL  RETURNS  TO  JUNGLE.  6i 

vated  and  each  began  to  entice  away  the  tenants 
of  his  neighbour,  by  offering  protection  against 
judicial  proceedings  and  farms  at  ver^'  low  rents.'"' 
As  they  became  more  impoverished  they  went  on 
bidding  more  eagerly  against  one  another  for  the 
husbandmen,  till  at  length  the  non-resident  class 
obtained  their  holdings  at  half-rates. ^^^  The  resident 
cultivators,  unable  to  compete  on  these  terms,  threw 
up  their  farms.  They  had  formerly  been  the 
wealthiest  order  of  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  but  now 
they  began  to  look  on  themselves  as  an  injured 
class,  and  so  general  became  the  desertion  that  in 
1784,  Parliament,  acquainted  with  the  signs  of  out- 
ward decay  but  ignorant  of  its  causes,  ordered  an 
inquiry  into  the  reasons  that  had  compelled  the 
agricultural  classes  '  to  abandon  and  relinquish  their 
lands.' ^'^  A  province  cannot  be  re -peopled,  how- 
ever, by  Act  of  Parliament.  The  land  remained 
untilled,  and  in  1 789,  Lord  Cornwallis,  after  three 
years'  vigilant  inquiry,  pronounced  one-third  of  the 
Company's  territories  in  Bengal  to  be  '  a  jungle  in- 
habited only  by  wild  beasts.' '^^ 

""  Letter  from  Christopher  Keating,  Esq.,  Collector,  to  John 
Shore,  Esq.,  President  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  30th  August 

1789.  From  the  Board  of  Revenue  to  the  Collector,  dated  loth  May 

1790,  etc.     B.  R.  R. 

'^^  Strictures  and  Observations  on  the  Mocurrery  System  of 
Landed  Property  in  Bengal,  by  Gurreeb  Doss  ;  with  Replies.  8vo. 
London,  1794-  This  is  a  reprint  of  a  somewhat  acrimonious  dis- 
cussion between  Mr.  J.  Prinsep  and  Mr.  Thos.  Law  in  the  Morning 
C/irom'c/^  during  \7()2.     O.  C. 

"2  24  Geo.  in.  39.     O.  C. 

1''  Minute  of  the  Governor-General,  September  18,  1789.  See 
also  his  letter  to  the  Court  of  Directors,  dated  2d  August  17S9. 


62  77/^5:  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  LiENGAL. 

Such  was  the  general  state  of  the  province  when 
it  passed  under  British  rule.  The  western  princi- 
palities, Beerbhoom  and  Bishenpore,  which  form 
the  special  subject  of  this  volume,  had  borne  their 
full  share  of  the  national  calamity.  In  1765,  four 
years  before  the  famine,  Beerbhoom  had  been  culti- 
vated by  close  on  six  thousand  rural  communes, 
each  with  a  hamlet  in  the  centre  of  its  lands."* 
In  1 77 1,  three  years  after  the  famine,  only  four 
thousand  five  hundred  of  these  little  communities 
survived."^  The  cultivators  fled  from  the  open 
country  to  the  cities ;  but  '  even  in  the  large  towns,' 
wrote  a  Beerbhoom  official  in  1771,  'there  is  not 
a  fourth  part  of  the  houses  inhabited.'"^  The 
following  year,  1772-73,  is  memorable  for  the  first 
attempt  which  Warren  Hastings  made  to  adjust  the 
land-tax  independently  of  the  Mussulman  Minister 
of  the  Interior,  and  the  native  subordinates,  eager 
to  find  favour  with  the  redoubted  Englishman,, 
returned  the  number  of  communes  at  nearly  a 
hundred  more  than  in  1771-72."^  But  the  fact 
could  not  be  concealed  :  depopulation  went  steadily 
on  till  1785,  when  the  number  had  sunk  to  four 
thousand  four  hundred,  and  of  the  six  thousand 
prosperous    communes    in     1765    close    on    fifteen 

^1*  Letter  from  the  Collector  to  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  3d 
July  1789,  etc.     B.  R.  R. 

"'  Hustabood  Accounts  and  Papers  for  the  Bengali  Year  1178 
(a.d.  1771-72).     Board  of  Revenue.     C.  O.  R. 

^^•^  Report  of  the  Supervisor,  Mr.  Higginson,  dated  22d  February 
1771.     I.  O.  R. 

'1"  Beerbhoom  Hustabood. — Letter  from  Collector  to  Board  of 
Revenue,  dated  3d  July  1789.     B.  R.  R. 


SEVERE  REVENUE  MEASURES.  63 

hundred  had  disappeared  and  their  lands  relapsed 
to  jungle/^**  Even  among  those  that  were  not 
altogether  abandoned  many  square  miles  of  the 
richest  country  lay  untilled,  and  one  set  of  revenue 
agents  after  another  failed  to  wring  the  land-tax  out 
of  the  people.  In  1772,  the  old  farmers  having 
thrown  up  their  task  in  despair  were  superseded 
and  dragged  down  to  the  debtors'  prison  in  Cal- 
cutta for  arrears.  At  each  new  adjustment  of  the 
revenue  the  same  thing  took  place  ;  the  hereditary 
prince  excusing  himself  from  remitting  the  land-tax 
to  the  English  treasury,  on  the  grounds  that  the 
revenue  agents  could  not  collect  it,  and  the  revenue 
agents  being  cast  without  mercy  into  dungeons. 
When  the  British  undertook  the  direct  managfement 
of  the  district,  nearly  twenty  years  after  the  famine, 
they  found  the  jail  filled  with  revenue  prisoners, 
not  one  of  whom  had  a  prospect  of  regaining  his 
liberty."^  For  this  state  of  things  the  Rajah  was 
not  alone  responsible.  While  the  country  every 
year  became  a  more  total  waste,  the  English 
Government  constantly  demanded  an  increased 
land-tax.  In  1771  more  than  one-third  of  the 
culturable  land  was  returned  in  the  public  accounts 
as  '  Deserted  ;' '■*'  in  1776  the  entries  in  this  column 
exceed  one-half  of  the  whole  tillage,  four  acres 
lying  waste   for  every  seven  that  remained  under 

*i^  The  exact  number  was  1445. 

^^^  Letters  from  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  ist  August 
1789,  etc.     B.  R.  R. 

120  Palatika.  Hustabood  accounts  of  IJeerbhoom  for  the  Bengali 
year  1178.     C.  O.  R. 


64  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

cultivation,'^^  On  tlie  other  hand,  the  Company 
increased  its  demand  from  less  than  ^^  100,000 
sterling  in  1772,  to  close  on  ;^i  12,000  in  1776. 
The  villagers  were  dragooned  into  paying  the  land- 
tax  by  Mussulman  troops,  but  notwithstanding  the 
utmost  severities  the  receipts  seldom  amounted  to 
much  more  than  one-half  of  the  demand. '^^ 

The  state  of  Beerbhoom  at  the  end  of  the  famine 
of  1770  will  be  found  officially  described  by  eye- 
witnesses in  Appendix  B.  Ten  years  later  we  find 
the  district  a  sequestered  and  an  impassable  jungle. 
In  ancient  times  it  had  been  the  highway  of  armies, 
the  favourite  battle-field  on  which  was  more  than 
once  decided  the  fate  of  Bengal;  in  1780  a  small 
body  of  Sepoys  could  with  difficulty  force  their  way 
through  its  forests.  For  120  miles,  says  a  con- 
temporary newspaper  correspondent,  probably  one 
of  the  officers  of  the  party,  '  they  marched  through 
but  an  extensive  wood,  all  the  way  a  perfect  wilder- 
ness ;  sometimes  a  small  village  presented  itself  in 
the  midst  of  these  jungles,  with  a  little  cultivated 
ground  around  it,  hardly  sufficient  to  encamp  the 
two  battalions.  These  woods  abound  with  tigers 
and  bears,  which  infested  the  camp  every  night,  but 
did  no  other  damage  than  carrying  off  a  child  and 

121  Hustabood  accounts  of  Beerbhoom  for  the  BengaH  year  1183. 
C.  O.  R. 


Government  Demand. 

Actual  Receipt 

1772,           .            .           .         • 

^^99413 

^55,207 

1773, 

103,089 

62,365 

1774, 

101,799 

52,533 

1775. 

100,983 

53,997 

1776, 

111,482 

63,350 

BEERBHOOM  MADE  OVER  TO  TIGERS.        65 

killing  some  of  the  gentlemen's  hackery  bullocks.'  '■^ 
The  narrator,  judging  by  the  obstacles  of  the  route, 
and  ignorant  of  the  past  history  of  the  district, 
magnified  the  march  into  an  achievement  never 
before  accomplished,  and  nine  years  later,  the 
jungle  continued  so  dense  as  to  shut  off  all  com- 
munication between  the  two  most  important  towns, 
and  to  cause  the  mails  to  be  carried  by  a  circuit 
of  fifty  miles  through  another  district.'"'* 

As  the  little  rural  communities  relinquished  their 
hamlets,  and  drew  closer  together  towards  the  centre 
of  the  district,  the  wild  beasts  pressed  hungrily  on 
their  rear.  In  vain  the  Company  offered  a  reward 
for  each  tiger's  head,  sufficient  to  maintain  a  peasant's 
family  in  comfort  for  three  months  ;  an  item  of  ex- 
penditure it  deemed  so  necessary,  that  when,  under 
extraordinary  pressure,  it  had  to  suspend  all  pay- 
ments, the  tiger -money  and  diet  allowance  for 
prisoners  were  the  sole  exceptions  to  the  rule.'" 
A  belt  of  jungle,  filled  with  wild  beasts,  formed 
round  each  village  ;  the  oflicial  records  frequently 
speak  of  the  mail-bag  being  carried  off  by  wild 
beasts  ;'■''  and  after  fruitless  injunctions  to  the  land- 
holders to  clear  the  forests,  Lord  Cornwallis  was 
at  length  compelled  to  sanction  a  public  grant  to 
keep  open  the  new  military  road  that  passed  through 

'*•■'  Ilickys  Gazelle,  Calcutta,  29tli  April  1780. 

''■'^  Bill  for  Contingent  Charges,  dated  29th  May  1789.     15.  K.  R. 

'^'^  Letters  from  the  Accountant-(]eneral  to  the  Collector  of  W^c- 
blioom,  dated  29th  December  1790  and  28th  January  1791.     15.  R.  R. 

'-"  Letters  from  Roard  of  Revenue  to  Collector,  dated  iith  Feh;u- 
ary  1789,  etc.      B.  R.  R, 

VdL.    I.  E 


66  TIfl':  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

Beerbhoom.'"  The  ravages  of  the  wild  elephants 
were  on  a  larger  scale,  and  their  extermination 
formed  one  of  the  most  important  duties  of  the 
Collector  for  some  time  after  the  district  passed 
directly  under  British  rule.  In  two  parishes  alone, 
during  the  last  few  years  of  the  native  administra- 
tion, fifty-six  villages  with  their  communal  lands 
'  had  all  been  destroyed  and  gone  to  jungle,  caused 
by  the  depredations  of  the  wild  elephants  ;'^^*  and 
an  official  return  states  that  forty  market  towns 
throughout  the  district  had  been  deserted  from  the 
same  cause.  The  Rajah  petitioned  the  Company 
to  use  its  influence  with  the  Nawab  of  Bengral'^^  to 
procure  the  loan  of  the  Viceregal  stud  of  tame  ele- 
phants, in  order  to  catch  the  wild  ones.^'^**  The  bag 
was  to  be  made  over  to  his  Highness  as  payment. 
This  assistance  not  being  obtained,  the  Rajah  for- 
mally applied  for  a  reduction  of  the  land-tax,  in 
consequence  of  the  district  being  depopulated  ty 
wild  elephants.  The  Collector  reported  the  claim 
to  be  just.  '  1  had  ocular  proof,  on  my  journey  to 
Deoghur,'  he  writes  ;  '  marks  of  their  ravages  re- 
maining. The  poor  timid  native  ties  his  cot  in  a 
tree,  to  which  he  retires  Avhen  the  elephants  ap- 
proach,  and   silently   views   the    destruction   of   his 


^*'  Letters  from  Board  of  Revenue  to  Collector,  dated  i  ith  Febru- 
ary 1789,  30th  April  1790,  etc.     B.  R.  R. 

128  From  the  Collector  of  Beerbhoom  to  the  Board  of  Revenue, 
dated  April  1790.     B.  R.  R. 

'-"  Mabarak-ad-Daulat. 

130  From  the  Collector  to  the  Board,  dated  15th  October  1790; 
and  the  Board's  reply,  dated  26th  idem.     B.  R.  R. 


DEVASTATED  BY  WILD  J-LKJ'JIAyiS.         67 

cottage,  and  all  the  profits  of  his  labour.  I  saw 
some  of  these  retreats  in  my  journey,  and  had  the 
cause  of  them  explained.  In  Bealputta  very  few 
inhabitants  remain  ;  and  the  zemindar's  fears  for 
the  neighbouring  purgunnahs  will  certainly  be  real- 
ized in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  if  some  method 
is  not  fallen  on  to  extirpate  those  destructive 
animals.'^^^ 

It  is  difficult  for  Englishmen,  accustomed  from 
boyhood  to  fire-arms,  to  comprehend  the  defence- 
less state  of  a  peasantry  armed  only  with  spears 
and  bows  against  the  larger  sorts  of  wild  beasts. 
It  is  not  lack  of  courage,  as  every  Englishman  who 
has  hunted  with  beaters  in  the  jungles  will  testify. 
Indeed,  the  intrepid  skill  with  which  a  band  of 
Beerbhoom  hill-men  surround  a  tiger,  never  ceases 
to  astonish  those  who  know  the  risk.  But  the 
herd  of  elephants  is  resistless;  lifting  off  roofs, 
pushing  down  walls,  trampling  a  village  under  foot, 
as  if  it  were  a  city  of  sand  that  a  child  had  built 
ii]3on  the  shore.  '  Most  fortunately  for  the  popula- 
tion of  the  country,'  wrote  the  greatest  elephant- 
hunter  of  that  period,  '  they  delight  in  the  seques- 
tered range  of  the  mountain  ;  did  they  prefer  the 
plain,  whole  kingdoms  would  be  laid  waste.'"*  In 
many  parts  of  the  country  the  peasantry  did  not 
dare  to  sleep  in  their  houses,   lest   they  should    be 

"•  From  the  Collector  to  the  Board,  dated  6th  Aii<,nist  1791. 
W.  R.  R. 

'•''-  Autobiography  of  the  Hon.  Robert  Lindsay,  Collector  of 
Sylhet ;  circ.  1778  to  17S9.  Lives  of  the  Lindsays,  by  Lord  Lindsay, 
vol.  iii.  p.  190. 


68  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

burled  beneath  them  during  the  night,  and  as 
late  as  1810  the  surveyor  of  a  district  a  little  to 
the  north  of  Beerbhoom  reports  :  '  The  alarm  that 
the  elephants  occasion  is  exceedingly  great.  One 
night  that  I  lay  close  to  the  hills,  although  I  had  a 
guard,  the  men  of  the  village  close  by  my  tents 
retired  at  night  to  the  trees,  and  the  women  hid 
themselves  among  the  cattle,  leaving  their  huts  a 
prey  to  the  elephants,  who  know  very  well  where  to 
look  for  grain.  Two  nights  before,  some  of  them 
had  unroofed  a  hut  in  the  village,  and  had  eaten 
up  all  the  grain  which  a  poor  family  had  preserved 
in  its  earthen  store. '^^^  It  is  right  to  add,  that  wild 
elephants,  although  they  may  have  become  more 
troublesome  as  the  jungle  absorbed  the  cultivated 
land  after  the  famine,  were  dreaded  devastators 
long  before  1770.  Even  in  the  most  prosperous 
period  of  the  Mussulman  rule  they  infested  what 
are  now  the  richest  districts  of  Bengal,  and  formed 
the  chief,  sometimes  indeed  the  sole,  revenue  that 
could  be  obtained  from  large  and  fertile  pro- 
vinces.^'^* 

The  evil  seems  to  have  reached  its  climax  about 
1786.  From  this  year  English  supervision,  more 
or  less  direct,  dates  in  Beerbhoom.  The  agri- 
culturalists were  by  no  means  the  on^ly  class  who 
fled    before    the    tiger    and    wild    elephant.      The 

"^^'^  History,  Antiquities,  etc.,  of  Eastern  India,  from  the  Buchanan 
Papers  in  the  E.  I.  House,  vol.  ii.  p.  14. 

^^''  Analysis  of  the  Bengali  Poem  Raj-Mala,  by  the  Rev.  James 
Long,  p.  19.  Pamphlet,  Svo,  Calcutta.  Lives  of  the  Lindsays, 
vol.  iii.  p.  163,  etc. 


RURAL  INDUSTRY  STANDS  STILL.  69 

earliest  Enirlish  records  disclose  the  forest  hamlets 
of  the  iron-smelters  deserted ;  the  charcoal-burners 
driven  from  their  occupation  by  wild  beasts  ;  many- 
factories  and  market  towns  abandoned  ;  the  cattle 
trade,  which  then  formed  an  important  branch  of 
the  district's  commerce,  at  a  stand  ;  and  the  halting- 
places,  where  herds  used  to  rest  and  fodder  on  their 
way  from  the  mountains  to  the  plains,  written  down 
as  waste. ^"^ 

But  tigers  and  wild  elephants  were  not  the  most 
cruel  enemies  of  the  peasant.  The  English  found 
Bengal  in  the  hands  of  banditti,  and  the  names 
of  successful  leaders  of  the  last  century,  such  as 
Strong-fisted  Khan,^'^  to  be  found  in  every  native 
history,  tell  a  story  of  rapine  and  oppression  not 
difficult  to  read.  Many  of  the  principal  families 
throughout  the  country,  being  dispossessed  by  the 
Mussulman  tax-gatherers  in  whole  or  part  of  their 
lands,  lived  by  plunder  ;  the  only  difference  between 
the  highland  and  lowland  proprietors  being,  that 
the  former  marauded  more  openly  and  on  a  larger 
scale.  The  latter,  indeed,  found  it  more  profitable 
to  shelter  banditti  on  their  estates,  levying  black- 
mail from  the  surrounding  villages  as  the  price  of 
immunity  from  depredation,  and  sharing  in  the 
plunder  of  such  as  would  not  come  to  terms. 
Their  country-houses  were  robber  strongholds,  and 
the  early  English  administrators  of  Bengal  have  left 

'■''■''  Letter  iVom  the  Collector  of  iJcerbhoom  to  the   Hoiird  of  Re- 
venue, dated  9th  October  17S9.      B.  R.  R. 

'■""'  Zabbar-dast  Khan,  famous  in  the  adjoining  district  of  Burdwan. 


70  '////';  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  JULVGAL. 

it  on  record,  that  a  g'an^^-robbery  never  occurred 
without  a  landed  proprietor  being  at  the  bottom  of 
it/"  Bands  of  cashiered  soldiers,  the  dregs  of  the 
Mussulman  armies,  roamed  about,  plundering  as 
they  went.  They  frequently  dressed  themselves 
in  the  Company's  uniform,  with  a  view  to  wholesale 
extortion  from  the  villagers, — a  fraud  rendered  so 
plausible  by  the  disorderly  conduct  of  our  own 
troops  on  the  line  of  march,  that  a  series  of  stringent 
enactments  failed  to  put  it  down.  Lawlessness 
breeds  lawlessness,  and  the  miserable  peasantry, 
stripped  of  their  hoard  for  the  winter,  were  forced 
to  become  plunderers  in  turn.  Early  in  1771,  the 
local  officers  report  '  the  frequent  firing  of  villages 
by  the  people,  whose  distress  drives  them  to  such 
acts  of  despair  and  villany.  Numbers  of  ryots, 
who  have  hitherto  borne  the  first  of  characters 
among  their  neighbours,  pursue  this  last  resource  to 
procure  themselves  a  subsistence.' ^'^^  They  formed 
themselves  into  bands  of  so-called  houseless  de- 
votees,^*^  and  roved  about  the  country  in  armies 
fifty  thousand  strong.  '  A  set  of  lawless  banditti,' 
wrote  the  Council  in  1773,  'known  under  the  name 
of  Sanyasis  or  Faquirs,  have  long  infested  these 
countries ;  and,  under  pretence  of  religious  pil- 
grimage, have  been  accustomed  to  traverse  the 
chief  part  of  Bengal,  begging,  stealing,  and  plunder- 


'•''"  Answers  to  Interrogatories,  circulated  in  iSoi. 
'^*  Letter  of  Mr.  Rous,  the    Supervisor   of  Rajshic,  dated   13th 
April  177 1.     I.  O.  R. 
^^'•*  Sanyassis. 


BENGAL  HELD  B  V  BANDLTTL  7 1 

ing  wherever  they  go,  and  as  it  best  suits  their 
convenience  to  practise.'"*'  In  the  years  subsequent 
to  the  famine,  their  ranks  were  swollen  by  a  crowd 
of  starving  peasants  who  had  neither  seed  nor 
implements  to  recommence  cultivation  with,  and 
the  cold  weather  of  1772  brought  them  down  upon 
the  harvest  fields  of  Lower  Bengal,  burning,  plun- 
dering, ravaging,  '  in  bodies  of  fifty  thousand 
men.'"^  The  collectors  called  out  the  military ; 
but  after  a  temporary  success  our  Sepoys  '  were  at 
length  totally  defeated,  and  Captain  Thomas  (their 
leader),  with  almost  the  whole  party,  cut  off.''"  It 
was  not  till  the  close  of  the  winter  that  the  Council 
could  report  to  the  Court  of  Directors,  that  a 
battalion,  under  an  experienced  commander,  had 
acted  successfully  against  them;"^  and  a  month 
later  we  find  that  even  this  tardy  intimation  had 
been  premature.  On  the  31st  March  1773,  Warren 
Hastings  plainly  acknowledges  that  the  commander 
who  had  succeeded  Captain  Thomas  '  unhappily 
underwent  the  same  fate;'  that  four  battalions  of 
the  army  were  then  actively  engaged  against  the 
banditti,  but  that,  in  spite  of  the  militia  levies  called 
from  the  landholders,  their  combined  operations 
had  been  fruitless.  The  revenue  could  not  be  col- 
lected,  the    inhabitants   made   common   cause   with 

'^"  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  (Secret  Department)  to 
the  Court  of  Directors,  dated  15th  January  1773,  para.  13.     I.  O.  R. 

'*'  From  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  ist  March  1773,  para.  16, 
etc.     I.  O.  R. 

'•'-   From  the  same  to  the  same,  d.ilcd  15th  January  1773.      I.  O.  K. 

'^■■'   Letter  of  ist  >Lar(h.  para.  16.      L  O.  R. 


72  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  marauders,  and  the  whole  rural  administration 
was  unhinged.  Such  incursions  were  annual  epi- 
sodes in  what  some  have  been  pleased  to  represent 
as  the  still  life  of  Bengal. 

Besides  those  whom  destitution  or  natural  de- 
pravity had  driven  to  rapine,  there  existed  numerous 
and  prosperous  clans  who  practised  robbery  as  a 
hereditary  calling.  The  Thugs  and  Dacoits  thought 
none  the  worse  of  themselves  for  their  profession, 
and  were  regarded  by  their  countrymen  with  an  awe 
which  in  India  at  that  time  could  hardly  be  dis- 
tinguished from  veneration.  *  I  am  a  Thug  of  the 
royal  records,'  one  of  them  was  good  enough  to 
explain  to  an  English  officer;  'I  and  my  fathers 
have  been  Thugs  for  twenty  generations.'  *  I  have 
always  followed  the  trade  of  my  ancestors,'  urged 
a  celebrated  Dacoit ;  '  my  ancestors  held  this  pro- 
fession before  me,  and  we  train  boys  in  the  same 
manner,'  said  another.  So  much  has  been  brought 
to  light  by  the  Thuggee  and  Dacoitee  Commissions, 
that  I  must  confine  myself  to  the  five-and-twenty 
years  during  which  the  rural  administration  was 
slowly  passing  into  English  hands. ^"**  '  The  Dacoits 
of  Bengal,^  so  runs  a  State  paper  written  in  1772, 
'  are  not,  like  the  robbers  in  England,  individuals 
driven  to  such  desperate  courses  by  sudden  want. 
They  are  robbers  by  profession,  and  even  by  birth. 
They   are    formed    into    regular    communities,    and 

'^'  An  account  of"  Thugj^cc  and  Dacoitee  in  later  years  will  be 
found  in  Mr.  Kayo's  admirable  'Administration  of  the  East  India 
Company,"  part  iii.  chap.  ii.  and  iii. 


WHOLE  CI  TIES  B  URNED  DOWN.  73 

their  families  subsist  by  the  spoils  which  they  bring 
home  to  them.'^^*  These  spoils  were  frequently 
brought  from  great  distances ;  villages  high  up  the 
Ganges  lived  by  housebreaking  in  Calcutta ;  and 
Warren  Hastings  distinctly  realized  that,  if  the 
crime  were  to  be  put  down,  not  only  the  actual  de- 
predators, but  also  the  remote  sharers  in  the  boot)^ 
must  be  united  in  one  common  punishment.  He 
went  about  the  work  in  that  straightforward,  incisive 
manner  which  he  always  adopted  when  he  had 
an  unpleasant  task  in  hand.  He  commanded  that 
every  convicted  Dacoit  should  be  executed ;  that  he 
should  be  '  executed  in  all  the  forms  and  terrors  of 
the  law '  in  his  native  village  ;  that  his  whole  family 
should  be  made  slaves ;  and  that  every  inhabitant 
of  the  village  should  be  fined.  In  spite  of  these 
severities,  however,  Dacoitee  continued  to  flourish 
for  more  than  three-quarters  of  a  century  in  Bengal. 
The  Dacoits  generally  effected  their  depredations  in 
bands  of  from  five  to  one  hundred,  by  armed  attacks 
in  the  villages,  and  in  the  large  towns  under  cover 
of  confusion  occasioned  by  fire.  The  conflagrations 
that  resulted  threatened  to  destroy  whole  cities.  In 
March  1780.  a  fire  occurred  in  Calcutta  that  l)urned 
down  fifteen  thousand  houses.  Nearly  two  hundred 
people  perished  in  the  flames.""  Clear  cases  of  in- 
cendiarism  are  constantly  recorded,  and  at   length 


'**  Letter  from  the  Coininittec  of  Circuit  to  tlic  Council  at  Fort 
William,  dated  Cossimbazaar,  15th  Auj,nist  1772. 

'•'"  Calcutta  in  the  Olden  Times,  its  Teople,  by  the  Rev.  J.  I.oii^. 
p.  37.     Pamphlet,  8vo,  Calcutta. 


74  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

it  was  gravely  *  recommended  that  those  owning 
straw-houses  should  have  a  long  bamboo  with  three 
hooks  at  the  end  to  catch  the  villains.''"  Organized 
outrages  were  committed  within  ear-shot  of  what 
are  now  the  most  fashionable  resorts  of  the  capital. 
'  A  few  nights  ago,'  the  Calcutta  paper  of  1 780 
announced,  '  four  armed  men  entered  the  houses  of 
a  moorman  near  Chowringhee,  and  carried  off  his 
daughter.'  Old  inhabitants  remember  the  time 
when  no  native  would  venture  out  at  night  with 
a  good  shawl  on  ;  and  it  was  the  invariable  practice, 
even  in  English  mansions,  for  the  porter  to  shut  the 
outer  door  at  the  commencement  of  each  meal,  and 
not  to  open  it  till  the  butler  brought  him  word  that 
the  plate  was  safely  locked  up. 

In  Beerbhoom  and  along  the  western  frontier 
these  disorders  had  reached  a  pitch  hardly  to  be 
distinguished  from  chronic  civil  war.  '  For  ages  ' — 
an  accurate  antiquarian  thus  describes  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  country  adjoining  Beerbhoom  on  the 
north — '  they  were  untamed  thieves  and  murderers, 
engaging  in  forays  on  the  plains  ;  while  the  Mussul- 
man zemindars,  in  reprisal,  shot  them  as  dogs.''*® 
The  Rajah  of  Beerbhoom's  territory  embraced  a 
large  tract  of  low  country,  where  the  people  lived 
within  walled  cities  in  a  state  of  constant  siege ; 
and  an  undefined  but  extensive  highland  region, 
inhabited  by  a  race  different  in  origin,  in  language, 

'^'  Calcutta  in  the  Olden  Times,  its  People,  by  the  Rev.  J.  Long, 
p.  37.     Pamphlet,  8vo,  Calcutta. 
'♦*  Rajmahal.     Pamphlet,  p.  21. 


THE  DEB  ATE  ABLE  LAND.  75 

in  rcli^^Ion,  from  the  people  of  the  plains,  and  sepa- 
rated from  them  by  deadly  and  immemorial  feuds. 
'  From  the  time  of  the  Mahomedan  kings,'  writes 
the  revenue  surveyor  of  an  adjacent  district,  '  these 
iiill  people  were  the  scourge  and  terror  of  the  neigh- 
bouring districts,  from  whose  inhabitants  they  levied 
black-mail ;  and  when  that  could  not  be  obtained, 
armed  bands,  fully  equipped  with  powerful  bamboo 
bows  and  arrows,  descended  from  the  hills,  murdered 
all  who  opposed  their  progress,  pillaged  the  countr)- 
far  and  near,  and  retreating  to  their  jungly  fortress, 
where  no  one  dared  to  follow  them,  defied  their 
victims. '^^^  In  the  province  to  the  north  of  Beer- 
bhoom,  for  a  hundred  miles  along  the  Ganges,  no 
boat  dared  to  moor  after  dark  on  the  southern 
bank ;  the  mails  were  constantly  robbed  ;  treasure 
parties  were  cut  off;  all  traffic  on  the  imperial  road 
for  a  time  ceased ;  and  a  line  of  crumbling  forts 
stretching  south-west  from  Bhaugulpore  still  bears 
witness  to  the  insecurity  of  life  and  property  in  the 
old  debateable  land. 

General  statements,  however,  do  not  tell  so 
strongly  as  particular  facts  ;  and,  lest  some  dulcet 
strain  of  Indian  Bucolics,  under  hereditary  chiefs, 
should  still  linger  in  the  reader's  memory,  I  shall 
relate  minutely  the  experiences  of  Beerbhoom  and 
Bishenpore  during  the  first  two  years  of  which  a 
complete  record  exists.  The  disorders  which  in- 
duced Lord  Cornwallis  to  place  the  districts  under 
the  direct   supervision   of  an    English  officer,  have 

'■"'   (".iptaiii  Slicr«  ill's  RcixmI,  p.  26.      l-"i>li<>.      C.  O.  R. 


76  THE  ANNALS  OF  KURAf.  BENGAL. 

been  already  narrated.  The  last  letter  referring 
to  Beerbhoom  under  its  native  chief,  gives  notice 
that  an  organized  raid  by  an  army  of  banditti  a 
thousand  strong  was  about  to  take  place.''"  The 
first  letter  in  the  records  of  the  English  local  ad- 
ministration thankfully  acknowledges  the  arrival  of 
a  full  company  of  Sepoys,  and  shortly  after  the 
detachment  had  to  be  doubled.^'^  There  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that,  during  the  brief  period  which 
had  intervened  between  these  letters,  the  efforts  of 
Mr.  Sherbourne  to  repress  the  banditti  had  been,  so 
far  as  the  time  permitted,  successful ;  and  the  fol- 
lowing pages  present  a  picture  modified  and  toned 
down,  rather  than  exaggerated,  of  the  state  in  which 
the  English  found  Bengal,  and  of  the  legacy  of 
troubles  bequeathed  to  them  by  Mussulman  mis- 
rule. 

The  chief  English  officer  exercised,  under  the 
style  of  Collector,  the  functions  of  Commander-in- 
Chief  and  Civil  Governor  within  his  jurisdiction. 
The  military  side  of  his  duties,  indeed,  received 
during  several  years  undue  prominence.  At  the 
beofinnino-  of  each  cold  weather,  when  -the  g^reat 
harvest  of  the  year  approached,  he  furnished  the 
officer  at  the  head  of  his  troops  with  a  list  of  passes 
which  the  Sepoys  were  to  defend  until  the  ban- 
ditti should  retire   into  quarters  for  the  next  rainy 

1.50  piom  Edward  Otto  Ives  to  the  Governor-General  in  Council. 
15.  J.  R. 

'•"''  From  Christopher  Keating,  Esq.,  Collector,  to  the  Board  of 
Revenue,  dated  2 2d  November  17 88.     B.  R.  R. 


BEERBHOOM  AA^  1 7  S9.  77 

season.  On  a  proposition  being  made  to  reduce 
the  strength  of  his  force,  he  plainly  stated  that  he 
would  not  be  responsible  for  holding  the  district ; 
and  a  folio  volume,  labelled  '  Military  Correspond- 
ence,' barely  contains  his  communications  with  the 
senior  captain  during  three  years.  Mr.  Keating,^'-' 
the  first  Collector  whose  records  survive,  had  not 
enjoyed  his  appointment  two  months  before  he 
found  himself  compelled  to  call  out  the  troops 
ao^ainst  a  band  of  marauders  five  hundred  strono-, 
who  '  had  made  a  descent  on'  a  market  town  within 
two  hours'  ride  from  the  English  capital,  and  mur- 
dered or  frightened  away  the  inhabitants  '  of  be- 
tween thirty  and  forty  villages.' '^'^  A  few  weeks 
later  (February  1789),  the  hill-men  broke  through 
the  cordon  of  outposts  en  masse,  and  spread  '  their 
depredations  throughout  the  interior  villages  of  the 
district.' ^^'  Panic  and  bloodshed  reigned  ;  the  out- 
posts were  hastily  recalled  from  the  frontier  passes  ; 
and  on  the  21st  of  February  1789,  we  find  Mr. 
Keating  levying  a  militia  to  act  with  the  regulars 
against  the  banditti  who  were  sacking  the  country 
towns  '  in  parties  of  three  and  four  hundred  men, 
well  found  in  arms.'  The  evil  was  not  to  be  so 
easily    dealt    with,    however,    and     the     Governor- 

'"^  Christopher  Keating  landed  in  Calcutta  July  1767,  as  a  writer; 
appointed  Collector  of  Beerbhoom  29th  October  1788  ;  appointed 
Senior  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Moorshcdabad  from  ist  May  1793,  but 
did  not  leave  Beerbhoom  till  the  6th  August ;  appears  as  a  Senior 
Merchant  in  the  Civil  List  of  1804.     C.  O.  R. 

'■"  Letter  from  the  Collector  to  Lieut.  J.  F.  Smith,  dated  lotli 
January  1789.     B.  R.  R. 

^'•"^  Mih'lary  Correspondence,  p.  15.     B.  K.  R. 


78  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

General  in  Council  had  eventually  to  direct  the 
Collectors  of  the  several  adjoining  districts  to  unite 
their  whole  forces  ;  all  questions  of  jurisdiction  were 
sunk;^^'^  a  battle  was  fought,  and  the  banditti  were 
chased  far  into  the  mountains.  But  a  piece  of  petty 
official  jealousy  prevented  the  success  from  being- 
complete.  The  confederates  had  omitted  to  take 
the  Collector  of  a  neighbouring  district  into  their 
councils,  and  the  bandits  found  shelter  within  his 
jurisdiction.  '  By  a  wounded  Sepoy,  who  is  arrived 
from  our  parties,'  wrote  the  indignant  Mr.  Keating, 
'  I  understand  they  have  had  a  smart  skirmish  with 
the  thieves  near  the  borders  of  Pacheate  ;  but  in 
their  pursuit  were  stopped  by  the  Collector's  guards, 
who,  instead  of  assisting  the  business,  prevented 
their  advancing  into  that  district,  and  sheltered 
some  of  the  banditti's  followers.  The  Sepoy  tells 
me  that,  in  consequence  of  [this  interference  by]  the 
Pacheate ,  people,  ours  have  thought  it  expedient  to 
seize  four  or  five  of  them  who  are  coming  in  to 
answer  for  their  conduct' ^^^  The  wrath  of  the 
Pacheate  Collector  at  the  capture  of  his  guards  by 
a  military  force  in  time  of  peace,  and  the  mutual 
reproaches  which  followed,  may  easily  be  con- 
ceived. 

The  disorders  in  Bishenpore  would,  in  any  less 
troubled  time,  have  been  called  rebellion.  The 
Rajah  had  been  imprisoned  for  arrears  of  the  land- 

155  From  Christopher  Keating  to  Laurence  Mercer,  Collector  of 
Burdwan,  dated  i6th  February  1789.     B.  R.  R. 

^^  From  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  9th  April  17S9. 


niSIlENPORE  IN  1789.  79 

tax;  the  head  assistant  to  the  Collector,  Mr.  Ilesil- 
rige,^"  was  in  charge  of  his  estates,  and  the  inhabit- 
ants made  common  cause  with  the  banditti  to  oppose 
the  Government.  In  June  1789,  a  detachment  was 
hurried  out  to  support  the  civil  power ;  eight  days 
afterwards  a  reinforcement  followed,  too  late  how- 
ever to  save  the  chief  manufacturing  town  in  the 
district  from  being  sacked  in  open  day  -  light.'^* 
Next  month,  Mr.  Keating  reported  to  Govern- 
ment that  the  marauders,  having  crossed  the  Adji 
in  '  a  large  party  armed  with  tulwars  (swords)  and 
matchlocks,'  had  established  themselves  in  Beer- 
bhoom,  and  that  their  reduction  would  simply  be 
a  question  of  military  force. 

The  rainy  season,  however,  came  to  the  aid  of 
the  authorities.  The  plunderers,  laden  with  spoil, 
and  leaving  a  sufficient  force  to  hold  Bishenpore 
as  a  basis  for  their  operations  in  the  next  cold 
weather,  retreated  to  their  strongholds;  and  Mr. 
Keating  took  advantage  of  the  lull  to  devise  a 
more  elaborate  system  for  warding  the  frontier. 
He  represented"^"  to  Lord  Cornwallis,  then  Gover- 
nor-General, that  the  existing  military  force  was 
insufficient  to  hold  the  district ;  that  the  contingents 
furnished  by  the  hereditary  wardens  of  the  marches 

*'^  Afterwards  Sir  Arthur  Hcsilrigc,  Bart.  Landed  as  a  writer  in 
'773  ;  assistant  and  occasionally  acting  Collector  of  Bcerbhoom  or 
Bishenpore,  from  25th  April  1786  to  9th  July,  when  he  was  removed 
on  a  charge  of  embezzlement ;  clears  himself  and  is  appointed  Col- 
lector of  Jcssore  from  the  1st  May  1793.  Appears  as  Senior  Merchant 
in  the  Civil  List  of  1804. 

'■"   Elambazaar  on  the  Adji. 

1^9  Letter  dated  i6th  October  1789.      15.  R.  R. 


8o  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

were  undisciplined,  faint-hearted,  more  disposed  to 
act  with  the  plunderers  than  against  them  ;  and  that 
to  secure  peace  to  the  lowlands,  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  station  a  guard  of  picked  soldiers  from 
the  regular  army  at  each  of  the  passes.  A  nucleus 
would  thus  be  formed  round  which  the  irregular 
troops  might  gather.  By  return  of  post,  with  a 
promptitude  that  lets  us  into  the  secret  of  Lord 
Cornwallis'  success  as  an  Indian  administrator,  came 
back  an  answer  '  that  the  Commander-in-Chief  has 
been  requested  to  detach '  a  sufficient  force  which 
the  Collector  '  will  station  at  the  different  ghauts 
(passes),  through  which  the  Dacoits  generally  make 
their  inroads  into  the  low  country.'  In  November, 
the  six  most  important  passes  were  occupied,  a 
detachment  was  stationed  in  Bishenpore,  another 
occupied  the  chief  manufacturing  town  on  the  Adji 
(the  one  that  had  been  sacked  the  previous  sum- 
mer), to  prevent  the  banditti  from  crossing  the  river. 
The  Adji  divides  the  united  district  into  two  parts, 
Bishenpore  on  the  south,  Beerbhoom  on  the  north  ; 
and  these  measures,  while  they  restored  compara- 
tive quiet  to  the  former,  left  the  latter  defenceless. 
'Scarce  a  night  passes,'  wrote  Mr.  Keating,  'with- 
out some  daring  robbery.'  The  military,  harassed 
by  night  marches,  and  scattered  about  in  small 
bands,  were  unable  to  cope  with  the  banditti,  or 
even  to  protect  the  principal  towns.  On  the  25th 
of  November  1789,  the  commanding  officer  re- 
ported that  only  four  men  remained  to  guard  the 
Government  offices  in  the  capital  ;  and  a  few  weeks 


THE  DISTRICT  CAPITAL  SACKED.  8i 

later  he  declared  himself  unable  to  furnish  an  escort 
sufficient  to  ensure  the  safety  of  a  treasure  party 
through  the  district.  At  length,  on  the  5th  of 
June,  Raj-Nagar,  the  ancient  capital  and  the  seat 
of  the  hereditary  princes,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
banditti. ^*"^  More  than  five  centuries  had  elapsed 
since  a  similar  calamity  had  befallen  Beerbhoom. 
In  1244  A.D.,  the  wild  tribes  from  the  south-west 
had  sacked  the  city,  and  history,  repeating  itself  in 
the  fortunes  of  the  obscurest  district  not  less  faith- 
fully than  in  the.  revolutions  of  empires,  discloses 
the  same  outrages  at  the  close  as  at  the  commence- 
ment of  Mussulman  rule. 

Mr.  Keating's  position  was  a  difficult  one.  He 
had  to  guard  Bishenpore  on  the  south  of  the  Adji, 
Beerbhoom  on  the  north,  and  above  all,  the  passes 
along  the  western  frontier.  Beerbhoom,  as  the 
headquarters  of  the  English  power,  was  of  the  first 
importance  ;  but  if  he  called  in  the  troops  from 
Bishenpore,  the  calamities  of  the  preceding  year 
would  be  repeated ;  and  if  he  withdrew  the  out- 
posts from  the  western  passes,  the  entire  district, 
north  and  south,  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  the 
hill-men.  He  decided  that  it  was  better  to  let  the 
marauders  riot  for  a  time  on  the  south  of  the  Adji, 
than  to  open  up  his  entire  frontier.  An  express 
summoned  the  detachments  from  Bishenpore  b)" 
forced  marches  to  the  rescue  of  Beerbhoom ;  but  no 

^•"'  Gya,  the  capital  of  the  adjoining  province  of  Bahar,  had  been 
sacked  by  marauders  a  year  before. — Letter  from  A.  Seton,  Esq.. 
Acting-Collector  of  Bahar,  to  the  Collector  of  Beerbhoom,  dated  23d 
April  1789. 

VOL.   L  F 


82  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

sooner  had  they  crossed  the  river  than  tidings  came 
that  Bishenpore  was  itself  in  the  hands  of  '  insur- 
crents  assembled  in  number  nearly  one  thousand.' 
The  rebellion  spread  into  adjoining  jurisdictions,  and 
the  Collectors  on  the  south  bitterly  reproached  Mr, 
Keating  with  having  sacrificed  the  peace  of  many 
districts  for  the  sake  of  maintainino-  intact  the 
outposts  along  the  frontier  of  his  own.  The  more 
strictly  these  passes  were  guarded,  the  greater  the 
number  of  marauders  who  flocked  by  a  circuitous 
route  into  the  unprotected  country  on  the  south  of 
the  Adji.  Their  outrages  passed  all  bounds;  the 
approaching  rains,  by  suspending  military  opera- 
tions, threatened  to  leave  them  in  possession  of 
Bishenpore  for  several  months ;  till  at  last  the 
peasantry,  wishing  for  death  rather  than  life,  rose 
against  the  oppressors  whom  they  had  a  year  ago 
welcomed  as  allies,  and  the  evil  began  to  work  its 
own  cure.  The  marauders  of  Bishenpore  under- 
went the  fate  of  the  Abyssinian  slave-troops  in 
Bengal  three  hundred  years  before,  being  shut  out 
of  the  walled  cities,  decoyed  into  the  woods  by  twos 
and  threes,  set  upon  by  bands  of  infuriated  peasants, 
and  ignobly  beaten  to  death  by  clubs.  In  mid- 
summer 1790  Mr.  Keating  ordered  the  senior 
captain  '  to  station  a  military  guard  with  an  officer 
at  Bishenpore,  whose  sole  business  I  propose  to  be 
that  of  receivino-  all  thieves  and  Dacoits  that  shall 
be  sent  in.' 

Thus   ended    the   first   two   )ears   of  which  we 
possess  a  complete  record  of  British  rule  in   Beer- 


BEERBHOOM  IN  1792.  S3 

bhoom.  From  their  calamities  we  can  imagine 
what  had  gone  before.  The  amount  of  propert)- 
destroyed  by  the  plunderers  may  be  estimated  from 
an  entry  in  a  state  document  drawn  up  a  few  years 
previously.  '  Deduct,'  saith  the  deed  for  the 
Benares  district  for  the  year  1782,  'deduct  the 
devastations,  etc.,  of  two  months'  disturbances,  Sicca 
rupees  666,666  :  10  :  lo.''*''  or  over  ^70,000  ster- 
ling. If  this  were  the  result  of  two  months,  what 
must  have  been  the  destruction  during  two  years  .-* 
Some  time  afterwards,  when  quiet  had  been  imperi- 
ously enforced,  Mr.  Keating  calmly  and  rather 
despondently  reviewed  the  result  of  his  labours. 
'  Beerbhoom,'  he  wrote,  '  is  surrounded  on  the 
south-west  and  west  by  the  great  western  jungle, 
which  has  long  protected  from  the  vigilance  of 
justice  numerous  gangs  of  Dacoits,  who  there  take 
up  their  refuge  and  commit  their  depredations  on 
the  neighbouring  defenceless  ryots.  Towns  once 
populous  are  now  deserted ;  the  manufactures  are 
decayed  ;  and  where  commerce  flourished,  only  a 
few  poor  and  wretched  hovels  are  seen.  These 
pernicious  effects  are  visible  along  the  whole  course 
of  the  Adji,  particularly  in  the  decay  of  Elambazaar 
(the  town  sacked  in  1789),  and  the  almost  complete 
desertion  of  the  once  large  trading  town  of  Sacara- 
coonda.  When  these  places  on  the  frontier  became 
from  their  poverty  no  longer  an  object  to  the 
Dacoits,  their  depredations  were  extended   into  the 

'«'  Treaties  and  Kngagcmenls  with  the  Native  Princes,  etc.,  of 
Asia,  p.  93.     Quarto  (1812). 


84  TJIE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

heart  of  the  district,  and  towns  have  been  plundered 
and  people  murdered  within  two  coss  (four  miles) 
of  the  Collector's  house,  by  banditti  amounting  to 
upwards  of  three  hundred  men.'  ^"^ 

This  unvarnished  picture  of  devastation  is  best 
left  without  any  finishing  stroke.  From  that  period 
to  the  Santal  war,  thirteen  years  ago,  armed  oppo- 
sition to  the  Government  has  been  unknown  in 
Beerbhoom.  Even  durinor  those  first  troubled 
years  of  British  rule,  the  peasantry  obtained  a 
degree  of  protection  that  they  had  not  enjoyed  for 
many  years  previously.  Tillage  extended ;  and 
between  the  time  that  Mr.  Foley  was  sent  to 
*  superintend '  Beerbhoom  and  that  at  which  Mr. 
Keating  finally  elaborated  his  system  of  frontier 
passes,  three  hundred  and  twenty-eight  rural  com- 
munes had  been  repeopled  and  brought  once  more 
under  cultivation. ^*^^  This  represents  an  increase  of 
more  tha;n  seven  per  cent,  to  the  total  number  of 
communes  in  the  district.  During  the  two  calami- 
tous years  with  which  we  are  most  familiar,  the 
improvement  was  rapid.  In  November  1788  Mr, 
Keating-  found  the  banditti  free  to  roam  over 
the  district.  He  established  outposts  to  check 
the  constant  invasions  of  marauders  from  the  hill 
country  ;  but  his  frontier  passes  were  forced,  and 
to  all  appearance  the  district  was  no  safer  in  1789 
than  when  he  took  over  charge.      The  disasters  of 

1G2  From  the  Collector  to  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  ist  June 
1792.     B.  R.  R. 

^^3  Statistics  in  a  Report  from  the  Collector  to  the  Board  of 
Revenue,  dated  3d  July  1789. 


THE  AMENDING  HAND.  85 

his  first  winter,  however,  had  taught  him  what  was 
needed.  The  outposts,  strengthened  by  reinforce- 
ments, were  maintained  intact ;  and  the  banditti, 
unable  to  find  an  entrance,  made  a  detour  to  the 
south,  and  massed  themselves  on  that  side  of  the 
Adji.  Before  the  rains  of  1790  set  in,  the  inha- 
bitants had  joined  heartily  with  the  Government 
against  the  common  enemy ;  and  the  robber-hordes 
of  Beerbhoom,  like  the  men  of  Gaza,  seemed  to 
have  been  assembled  in  one  spot  only  to  render 
their  destruction  more  complete. 

As  soon  as  order  was  established,  the  amending 
hand  rapidly  made  itself  felt.  Organized  robberies 
and  armed  feuds  between  the  landholders  have  from 
time  to  time  disturbed  the  repose  of  the  district,  but 
on  a  scale  so  trifling  as  barely  to  keep  alive  the 
remembrance  of  the  old  troubles,  as  the  names  of 
Singh-bhum  (Lion-land),  Sher-ghar  (Tiger-town), 
Sher-ghati  (Tiger-ford),  Shikar-pur  (Hunting-ham- 
let), stand  as  scarcely  recognised  memorials  of  the 
days  when  the  margin  of  cultivation  receded  before 
wild  beasts.  In  1802  Sir  Henry  Strachey  mentions 
Beerbhoom  as  a  part  of  the  country  remarkably  free 
from  gang-robbery ;  it  is  now,  perhaps,  the  very 
quietest  district  in  Bengal ;  and  a  recent  public 
document,  in  curious  unconsciousness  of  the  past, 
describes  it  as  still  enjo)'ing  '  its  old  inimunit)'  from 
crime.' 

Nor  has  the  change  been  less  marked  with 
regard  to  wild  animals.  It  is  now  impossible  to 
find  an   undomesticated    elephant.   an<l   very   rarcK' 


86  'JHE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  LUiNGAL. 

possible  to  hear  of  a  tiger  throui^liout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  district.  The  last  tiger-hunt 
took  place  in  May  1864.  A  band  of  hill-men,  in 
number  about  five  hundred,  beat  many  square  miles 
of  jungle,  but  not  a  bear  or  a  leopard,  much  less  a 
tiger  or  an  elephant,  could  they  turn  out.  The 
largest  thing  we  saw  was  a  small  spotted  deer. 
Bears  and  leopards  still  survive  in  the  recesses  of 
the  woods,  but  they  never  trouble  the  inhabitants, 
and  their  capture  is  as  much  an  event  as  the  shoot- 
ing of  an  eagle  in  the  Scottish  Highlands. 

For  the  disorders  which  the  Enelish  found  in 
Bengal  the  native  aristocracy  cannot  be  held  re- 
sponsible. At  that  period,  Mussulman  oppression 
and  public  calamities  had  reduced  them  to  a  state 
in  which  they  could  no  longer  discharge  their  func- 
tions as  the  natural  leaders  of  the  people.  But  the 
immemorial  miseries  of  the  Bengali  spring  from  a 
much  deeper  source.  A  strong  spirit  of  nationality 
would  have  rendered  such  protracted  oppression 
impossible ;  the  want  of  this  spirit  in  an  Asiatic 
country  during  the  spread  of  Islam  rendered 
conquest  and  national  abasement  inevitable.  At 
a  time  when  Enohsh  statesmen  in  Benoral  are 
labouring  to  develop  a  self-supporting  national  life 
among  the  heterogeneous  millions  over  whom  they 
have  been  called  to  rule,  it  is  well  accurately  to 
understand  the  reasons  why  a  people  so  industrious, 
so  patient,  and  yet  so  shrewdly  quick-witted,  have 
never  been  a  nation.  As  the  same  reasons  lie  at 
the  root  of  much  that  is  otherwise  inexplicable   in 


THE  BENGALIS  NEVER  A  NATION.  87 

the  home  life  and  agrarian  system  of  the  Bengali, 
such  an  inquiry,  although  it  will  lead  away  from  my 
immediate  subject-matter,  may  with  great  propriety 
be  conducted  in  a  preliminary  volume  of  Rural 
Annals.  The  two  following  chapters,  therefore, 
will  treat  at  some  length  of  the  elemental  and 
structural  defects  that  have  hitherto  incapacitated 
the  hybrid  multitudes  of  Bengal  from  becoming  a 
nation. 


88  TlIK  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE    ETHNICAL    ELEMENTS    OF    THE    LOWLAND 
POPULATION    OF    BENGAL. 

T  N  the  year  1790  the  United  District,  after  a  full 
half-century  of  invasion  and  rapine,  obtained 
rest,  and  its  new  rulers  had  leisure  to  survey  the 
population  that  had  passed  under  their  care.  In 
Bishenpore  the  Rajah,  his  aristocracy,  and  the  whole 
people  were  Hindus.  On  the  other  bank  of  the 
Adji  the  Beerbhoom  house,  with  several  Mussul- 
man families  who  had  grown  rich  in  its  service, 
asserted  Afghan  or  Pathan  descent,  and  disdained  to 
minele  their  northern  blood  with  the  misbelievinor 
natives.  Separated  from  their  subjects  by  religion, 
a  foreign  speech,  and  the  pride  of  birth,  they  formed 
a  class  socially  important,  but  numerically  small. 
The  mass  of  the  people  consisted  of  two  races 
which  in  intellect,  language,  and  in  everything  that 
makes  a  nation  great  or  ignoble,  have  been  selected 
to  represent  the  highest  and  the  lowest  types  of 
mankind.  The  aboriginal  tribes  of  Bengal,  pushed 
back  from  the  rich  valley  by  the  Ar^'ans,  made  a 
final  stand  for  existence  amonsf  the  highlands  of 
Beerbhoom ;  and  the  same   mountains  which  were 


THE  AR  VANS  AND  ABORIGINES.  89 

fixed  in  pre-historic  times  as  landmarks  between 
the  races,  accurately  demarcate  their  territories  at 
this  day.  The  composite  people  evolved  from  two 
stocks,  belonging  to  very-  unequal  degrees  of  civili- 
sation, when  brought  closely  and  permanently  into 
contact,  presents  one  of  the  most  interesting  ques- 
tions with  which  history  has  to  deal.  How  the 
Aryan  and  the  Aboriginal  solved  this  problem,  the 
terms  on  which  they  have  to  a  certain  extent  united, 
and  the  ethnical  compromises  to  which  they  have 
had  to  submit,  form  the  subject  of  this  chapter. 

The  inquiry  leads  us  back  to  that  far-off  time 
which  we  love  to  associate  with  patriarchal  stillness.^ 
Yet  the  echoes  of  ancient  life  in  India  little  re- 
semble a  Sicilian  Idyl  or  the  strains  of  Pan's  pipe, 
but  strike  the  ear  rather  as  the  cries  of  oppressed 
and  wandering  nations,  of  people  in  constant  mo- 
tion and  pain.  Early  Indian  researches,  however, 
while  they  make  havoc  of  the  pastoral  landscapes 
of  Genesis  and  Job,  have  a  consolation  peculiarly 
suited  to  this  age.  They  plainly  tell  us,  that  as 
in  Europe,  so  in  Asia,  the  primitive  state  of  man- 
kind was  a  state  of  unrest ;  and  that  civilisation, 
despite  its  exactions  and  nervous  city  life,  is  a  state 
of  repose. 

Our  earliest  glimpses  of  the  human  family  in 

*  '  The  India  of  the  Vcdic  books  presents  to  M.  Michclct's  view  a 
domestic  picture  of  purity,  dignity,  and  sweetness,'  says  the  Saturday 
Reviewer  of  M.  Michelet's  '  Bible  de  I'Humanitd'  (Paris  :  Chamcrot, 
1864).  Little  as  is  known  of  Sanskrit  history,  enough  has  been  ascer- 
tained to  dispel  M.  Michelet's  pretty  illusion  of  the  millions  of  medi- 
tative Aryans  chaunting  the  Ramayana  during  three  or  four  thuusand 
years. 


90  THE  ANNALS  OF  JWRAL  BENGAL. 

India  disclose  two  tribes  of  widely  different  origin, 
struggling  for  the  mastery.  In  the  primitive  time, 
which  lies  on  the  horizon  even  of  inductive  history, 
a  tall,  fair-complexioned  race  passed  the  Hima- 
laya. They  came  of  a  conquering  stock.  They 
had  known  the  safety  and  the  plenty  which  can 
only  be  enjoyed  in  regular  communities.  They 
brought  with  them  a  store  of  legends  and  devotional 
strains  ;  and  chief  of  all,  they  were  at  the  time  of 
their  migration  southward  throucjh  Benoal  if  not  at 
their  first  arrival  in  India,  imbued  with  that  high 
sense  of  nationality  which  burns  in  the  hearts  of 
a  people  who  believe  themselves  the  depositary 
of  a  divine  revelation.'"^  There  is  no  record  of 
the  new-comers'  first  strusfcrle  for  life  with  the 
people  of  the  land.  We  know  not  the  date  of 
their  setting  out,  nor  the  names  of  their  leaders. 
We  have  no  tales  to  tell  like  those  which  have 
interested  seventy  generations  in  the  weather-beaten 
band  who  drew  up  their  galleys  on  the  sands  of 
Cumse.  The  philologer  can  only  assert  that  a 
branch  of  a  noble  stock  won  for  themselves  a  home 

2  European  scholars  have  assigned  the  Vedic  claims  to  inspiration 
to  the  commentators  rather  than  to  the  composers  of  the  hymns. 
The  commentators  unquestionably  developed  these  claims,  but 
Hindu  faith  has  ever  asserted  the  inspiration  of  the  sacred  texts. 
Such  passages  as  the  following  in  the  \'^edas  themselves  leave  the 
devout  but  unsceptical  pundit  little  room  for  doubt.  '  The  holy  sages 
of  old  who  talked  about  divine  truths  with  the  gods.' — Rig  Veda,  i. 
179.  '  The  wise,  the  well-knowing  one,  who  hath  taught  us,  he  hath 
declared  the  secrets  of  the  heavens.' — Rig  Veda,  vii.  87.  '  The  gods 
gave  birth  first  to  the  hymn,  then  to  the  fire,  then  to  the  ofifering.' — 
Rig  Veda,  viii.  88.  The  question  is  comprehensively  discussed  in 
Muir's  Sanskrit  Texts,  Part  iii.,  London,  Octavo,  1S61. 


THE  ARYANS.  91 

among  numerous  but  inferior  tribes,  and  that  before 
the  dawn  of  history  the  children  of  the  soil  had 
been  reduced  to  villeinage,  or  driven  back  into  the 
forest. 

The  emigrants  belonged  to  that  prolific  race 
which,  under  the  title  of  Aryan,  literally  Noble, 
radiated  from  Central  Asia  to  the  extremities  of  the 
ancient  world.  One  branch  established  a  powerful 
state  and  a  highly  spiritual  creed  on  the  borders 
ot  China ;  another  founded  the  Persian  dynasty ;  a 
third  built  Athens  and  Lacedsemon  ;  a  fourth,  the 
City  of  the  Seven  Hills.  A  distant  colony  of  the 
same  race  excavated  silver  ore  in  pre-historic  Spain  ; 
and  the  earliest  glimpses  we  get  at  our  own  Eng- 
land disclose  an  Aryan  settlement,  fishing  in  its 
willow  canoes  and  working  in  the  mines  of  Corn- 
wall.  The  Aryan  speech  has  fornied  the  basis  of 
the  languages  of  half  of  Asia,  and  of  nearly  the 
whole  of  Europe;  it  is  now  conquering  for  itself 
the  forests  of  the  New  World,  and  carrying  Indo- 
Germanic  culture  to  island  empires  in  the  Southern 
Ocean,  The  history  of  the  ancient  world,  as  under- 
stood by  classical  scholars,  is  the  history  of  a  few 
Aryan  settlements  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean ;  and  that  wide  term,  modern  civilisation, 
merely  means  the  civilisation  of  the  western  families 
of  the  same  race. 

The  Vedic  literature  exhibits  the  Indian  branch 
of  the  Aryans  settled  in  their  new  homes.  By 
whatever  route  they  travelled,  there  is  little  doubt 
tliat  their  first  settlements  la)    in   the  well  watered 


92  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

valleys  of  North-western  Hindusthan.  The  seven 
rivers  of  the  Punjab,  indeed,  would  seem  to  form 
a  common  remembrance  of  both  the  Indian  and 
Persian  branches  of  the  race ;  and  this  circumstance 
gives  additional  probability  to  the  views  of  those 
scholars  who  maintain  that  the  schism  between  the 
Vedic  and  the  Avestic  faiths  took  place  on  the 
Indian  side  of  the  Himalaya.^  In  its  subsequent 
wanderings  through  India,  the  Sanskrit  race  has 
never  forgotten  its  primitive  northern  home.  The 
land  of  pure  speech  ;*  the  source  of  divine  know- 
ledge ;  the  fountainhead  of  holy  waters ;  the  scene 
of  the  birth,  the  trials,  and  the  glorious  espousals 
of  Uma;''  the  realm  of  the  mystic  king  Himalaya;" 
the  region  in  which  Arjuna  strove  single-handed 
with  the  Great  God,'  and,  although  defeated  like 
Jacob  of  old,  won  a  blessing  and  the  irresistible 
weapon  from  the  Deity; — these  and  numberless  other 

^  The  Hapta  Hendu  of  the  Vendiclad  are  plainly  the  same  as  the 
Sapta  Sindhavas  of  the  Vedic  Hymns.  This  is  only  one  of  many 
coincidences  indicating  a  common  origin  of  the  now  widely  severed 
faiths.  Haug  points  out  that  the  thoroughly  Sanskrit  Mantra  appears 
in  the  Zendavesta  as  Manthra,  and  that  Zoroaster  was  the  Manthran, 
or  giver  of  the  Avestic  Manthras.  (Aitareya  Brahmanam,  2  vols., 
Triibner,  1863.)  Spiegel  has  shown,  in  his  Introductory^  Discourse  to 
the  Avesta,  that  Yima  is  the  same  as  the  Sanskrit  Yama.  Cf.  Muir's 
Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  ii.  pp.  293,  294,  and  his  admirable  pamphlet 
'Yama,'  8vo,  London  1865. 

*  Sanskrit  Texts,"  ii.  338.     8vo,  i860. 

*  The  beautiful  legend  of  Uma  formed  the  introduction  to  the 
Kumara  Sambhava,  and  is  now  all  that  remains  of  it. 

^  Kumara  Sambhava,  by  Kalidasa.     Canto  i. 

">  Mahadeva.  '  Uttara  Kuru,  the  Elysium  in  the  remotest  north, 
may  be  most  properly  regarded  as  an  ideal  picture  created  by  the 
imagination  of  a  life  of  tranquil  felicity.' — Lassen,  Ind.  Antiq.  i.  p, 
511. 


THEIR  NORTHERN  HOME.  93 

epithets  and  legends  all  point  to  the  time  when  the 
Sanskrit  race,  still  on  its  pilgrima<^e,  halted  for  a 
while  in  its  beloved  north.  There  was  its  Olympus  ; 
there  eloquence  descended  from  heaven  among 
men  ;  and  there  the  abodes  of  the  blessed  cluster 
beneath  the  shadow  of  the  golden  mountain,  or 
cast  their  reflections  on  the  twin  sacred  lakes. '^ 
One  valley  in  particular -left  an  ineffaceable  im- 
pression. It  has  become  the  Holy  Land  of  the 
I ndo- Aryans,  and  the  river ^  that  watered  it  was 
lonof  remembered  with  the  affection  and  devout 
regard  which  the  Jordan  excites  among  the  dis- 
persed of  the  Jews. 

From  this  happy  valley  the  settlers  threw  off 
colonies  east  and  south,  and  before  the  compilation 
of  their  customs  into  a  national  code  had  conquered 
all  Bengal.  Manu  has  some  curious  verses  on  the 
Sanskrit  geography  of  his  time,  wdiich,  as  recently 
illustrated  by  the  scholarship  of  Dr.  Muir,  throw  a 
new  and  conclusive  light  on  the  spread  of  Aryan 
civilisation  in  India.  JManu's  civilised  world  is  in 
the  shape  of  a  comet,  with  its  eye  in  the  north-west 
of  India,  and  a  broad  tail  spreading  south-east  to 
the  Bay  of  Bengal.  He  divides  it  into  four  regions, 
each  less  pure  as  it  is  more  distant  from  the  starting- 
point  in  the  north,  and  each  representing  Aryan 
migrations  at  widely-separated  epochs. 

First  there  was  the  northern  valley,  the  Hoi)- 
Land   itself,  described  by  Manu  as  '  lying  between 

*  Manosaravara  and  Ravana-prada. 

•  The  Saiaswati. 


94  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  two  sacred  rivers,'"  fashioned  of  God  and  called 
by  the  name  of  the  Creator.'"  South-east  of  the 
Holy  Land,  and  adjoining  to  it,  lay  the  Land  of  the 
Sacred  Sinfjers.'^  This  marks  the  first  advance  of 
the  Sanskrit  Pomoerium.  The  later  portion,  at 
least,  of  the  Vedic  hymns  was  composed  within  it, 
and  the  places  of  pilgrimage  at  every  confluence  of 
its  streams  bear  witness*  to  a  sanctity  hardly  less 
venerable  than  that  of  the  Holy  Land  itself  '  From 
a  Brahman  born  in  this  land,  let  every  man  on  the 
earth  learn  each  his  own  duties.''^ 

But  not  even  this  extension  would  suffice  for 
the  growing  numbers  of  the  people,  and  the  next 
stride  was  a  wide  one.  It  embraced  what  Manu 
accurately  calls  the  Middle  Land,^*  including  the 
whole  river  system  of  Upper  India,  from  the  Hima- 
layas on  the  north  to  the  Vindhya  ranges  on  the 
south,  and  from  Allahabad  on  the  east  to  where  the 
sacred  river  was  fabled  to  hide  itself  from  the  im- 
pure races  beneath  the  sands  of  the  western  desert. 
The  colonization  of  this  vast  tract  seems  not  to 
have  commenced  till  the  close  of  the  Vedic  era,  and 
it  must  have  been  the  slow  work  of  aees.  In  it 
the  simple  faith  of  the  singers  was  first  adorned 
with  stately  rites,  and  then  extinguished  beneath 
them.      It   beheld   the   race  progress   from   a   loose 

^^  The  Saraswati  and  the  Drishadvati. 

^1  Dcvanirmittam  desham  Brahmavarttam.  Manava  Dharina 
Sastra,  Hb.  ii.  sloka  17,  Cox  and  Baylis,  4to,  1825.  Muir's  Sanskrit 
Texts,  ii.  418. 

^-  Brahmaishidesha. 

'■''  Manava  Dharma  Sastra,  ii.  20. 

^*  Madhya-desha.     Id.  ii.  21. 


ARYAN  COLONIZATION  OF  BENGAL.  95 

confederacy  of  patriarchal  communities  into  several 
well-knit  nations,  each  secured  by  a  strong  central 
force,  but  disfigured  by  distinctions  of  caste,  destined 
in  the  end  to  be  the  ruin  of  the  vSanskrit  people. 
The  compilers  of  the  land-law  recorded  in  the  Book 
of  Manu,  if  not  actual  residents  of  the  Middle  Land, 
were  so  closely  identified  with  it,  as  to  look  ui)()n 
it  as  the  focus  of  their  race  ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
the  treatise  which  goes  by  Manu's  name  could  not 
have  been  written  till  after  the  Indian  Aryans  had 
settled  down  into  the  sort  of  civilisation  which  the 
Middle  Land  developed. 

These  three  regions  must  long  have  furnished 
sufficient  territory  for  the  race  ;  and  no  one  who 
knows  what  a  terrible  thing  an  Indian  river  is,  with 
its  midnight  hurricanes,  its  uncontrollable  currents, 
its  whirlpools  and  sheets  of  treacherous  calm,  will 
wonder  that  the  Aryans  hesitated  to  embark  for 
the  lower  valley  of  the  Ganges.  But  river  courses 
'have  ever  formed  the  high  roads  of  nations,  and 
sooner  or  later  the  Ganges  gave  a  direction  to  the 
Sanskrit  line  of  march  throuMi  Bengfal.  Like  the 
hordes  of  Northern  Europe  under  similar  circum- 
stances, '  they  followed  the  unknown  course  of  the 
river,  confident  in  their  valour  and  careless  of  what- 
ever power  might  oppose  them  ;'*"  and  before  the 
compilation  of  their  National  Customs,  a  work  pro- 
bably performed  by  several  hands,  but  popularly 
ascribed  to  Manu,  they  had  spread  themselves  over 
the   whole  of    Bengal.    '  from    the   Eastern  even   to 

1'  Gibbon. 


(/j  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  Western  Ocean.'*''  This  tract  Manu  calls  the 
Aryan  Pale.  It  comprised  the  entire  Sanskrit 
world  of  his  time.  Beyond  it  all  was  tei^ra  incognita^ 
peopled,  according  to  Sanskrit  writers,  by  giants 
and  raw-eaters, — regions  where  the  black  antelope 
refused  to  graze,  and  in  which  the  sacrificing  Aryan 
was  forbidden  to  dwell. 

We  are  too  much  accustomed  to  speak  of  India 
as  a  single  country,  and  of  its  inhabitants  as  a  single 
nation ;  but  the  truth  is,  that  as  regards  its  history, 
its  extent,  and  its  population,  India  displays  the 
diversities  rather  of  a  continent  than  of  a  singfle 
State.  Our  mistake  arises  from  the  customs  or 
beliefs  of  particular  parts  being  falsely  predicated 
of  the  whole,  and  from  isolated  facts  being  magni- 
fied into  general  conclusions.  The  popular  English 
mind,  accustomed  to  regard  the  Indian  Empire  as 
a  political  unit  among  British  dependencies,  has 
come  to  look  upon  the  component  parts  of  that 
unit  as  historically  and  socially  one.  Wide  dif-v 
ferences  of  race  and  creed  are  known  to  exist,  but 
the  recognition  is  dim  and  speculative,  rather  than 
practically  and  substantially  realized.  Setting  aside 
the  Mussulmans  and  their  faith,  it  is  generally 
supposed  that  the  inhabitants  of  India  are,  and 
for  aees  have  been,  Hindus  ;  that  the  relio^ion  of 
India  since  the  beginning  of  history  has  been  the 
Hindu  religion;  and  that  from  time  immemorial 
Indian  society  has  been  artificially  divided  into  four 
classes,  known  as  the  Hindu  Castes.     Such  opinions 

'^^  Manu,  ii.  22. 


MANU'S  SYSTEM  A  LOCAL  ONE.  97 

have  led  to  a  complete  misunderstanding  of  the 
Indian  people, — a  misunderstanding  which  warps 
our  whole  political  dealings  with  India,  and  which 
stands  as  a  barrier  between  our  eastern  subjects 
and  that  new  order  of  things,  with  its  more  active 
humanity  and  purer  creed,  of  which  England  is  the 
messenger  and  representative  to  the  Asiatic  world. 

The  civilisation  which  is  popularly  supposed  to 
have  been  the  civilisation  of  ancient  India,  and 
which  is  represented  by  the  Brahmanas  and  the 
Book  of  Manu,  was  in  its  integrity  confined  to  the 
northern  country,  termed  by  Manu  the  Middle 
Land,  and  now  known  as  the  North-west  Provinces 
and  Punjab.  The  active  duties  of  life  pressed 
lightly  upon  the  conquerors  in  the  thoroughly 
vanquished  north.  An  age  of  reflection  followed 
an  age  of  exertion,  and  the  Aryans  subsided  into 
the  mild-eyed  philosophers  whom  Megasthenes 
found  conversing  amid  their  mango  groves  chiefly 
on  life  and  death.  The  sacred  texts  were  anno- 
tated, and  their  simple  prayers  elaborated  into  a 
complicated  and  costly  superstition.  A  meditative 
generation  went  to  work  on  the  sayings  of  their 
practical  fathers,  determined  to  elicit  hidden  mean- 
ings from  everything.  The  objective  was  fined 
down  to  the  subjective ;  an  observation  on  the 
weather  furnished  a  saving  doctrine  of  religion  ; 
and  from  a  thanksgiving  for  victory  a  whole  theo- 
logical system  was  evolved.  Schools  wrangled, 
sects  split  words,  ceremony  was  piled  upon  cere- 
mony, till  at  length  the  highest  object  of  Ar\aii 
VOL.  I.  •  G 


98  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

existence  became  the  propagation  of  grammatical 
enigmas,  or  the  successful  performance  of  a  sacrifice 
which  should  occupy  three  generations,  and  extend 
over  more  than  one  hundred  years."  Of  such 
refinements  the  Aryan  emigrants  in  Lower  Bengal 
knew  nothing.  At  the  time  of  their  setting  out, 
their  countrymen  were  workers  rather  than  thinkers : 
philosophy  did  not  easily  travel  through  the  jungles 
of  the  southern  valley ;  and  the  settlers  had  to  con- 
sider not  so  much  why  they  existed,  as  by  what 
means  they  were  to  continue  to  exist.  Their 
opponents  were  not  rival  pandits  armed  with  new 
interpretations,  but  the  black  squat  races  with  sharp 
spears  and  poisoned  arrows  in  their  hands.  It  was 
not  till  historic  times  that  the  Hindus  of  Bengal 
Proper  accepted  Hinduism  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
word.  Buddhism,  which  found  arrayed  against 
it  in  the  north  a  stately  phalanx  of  religious  beliefs, 
a  host  of  time-honoured  rites  and  vested  interests, 
obtained  in  Lower  Bengal  a  fair  hearing,  such  as  a 
new  creed  might  receive  from  a  people  \vho  had 
not  developed  a  high  form  of  religion  for  them- 
selves. Moreover,  Buddhism  won  its  easiest  and 
most  permanent  conquests  in  the  countries  out- 
side the  Middle  Land ;  and  to  this  day  its  monu- 
ments, now  turned  into  Hindu  temples,  form  the 
most  conspicuous  pieces  of  architecture  in  the  dis- 
tricts  adjoining  Beerbhoom.     The   settlers    in   the 

^^  Haug  speaks  of  sacrificial  sessions  lasting  even  one  thousand 
years,  and  refers  to  the  Mahabharata  iii.  105 13  for  an  example. — 
Aitareya  Brahmanam,  vol.  i.  p.  6  and  footnote. 


BUDDHISM  IN  LOWER  BENGAL. 


99 


Lower  Valley  must  either  have  quickly  forgotten 
the  distinctive  doctrines  of  Aryan  faith  as  professed 
in  the  Middle  Land,  or  they  must  have  started 
southwards  before  those  doctrines  were  evolved. 
They  make  their  first  appearance  in  history  as 
Buddhists,  not  as  Hindus  :  their  kings  were  abori- 
ginal, not  Aryan ;  and  the  Celts  had  listened  to 
Christian  anthems  in  lona  centuries  before  the 
mixed  Bengali  people  accepted  their  present  religion. 
After  their  conversion  they  repeatedly  and  con- 
sciously supplemented  their  meagre  Hinduism  with 
importations  from  the  Middle  Land ;  and  one  of 
their  first  traditions,  in  which  we  touch  firm  historic 
ground,  represents  the  King  of  Gour  bringing 
priests  from  the  north  to  initiate  his  Brahmans  in 
sacrifices  common  for  ages  in  Upper  India,  but 
which  the  priests  of  Bengal  Proper  knew  not  how 
to  perform.  No  one  can  study  minutely  the  local 
monuments  and  traditions  of  the  Lower  Valley, 
without  comincr  to  the  conviction  that  the  Hindu 
creed,  as  laid  down  in  Manu  and  the  Brahmanas, 
is  a  comparatively  modern  importation  from  the 
north,  and  that  Buddhism  was  the  first  form  of 
an  elaborated  religious  belief  which  the  Bengali 
people  received.^* 

'^  I  limit  the  above  remarks  to  Bengal  Proper,  the  province  to 
the  south-east  of  Magaciha  (Bahar),  in  which  latter,  from  its  proxi- 
mity to  the  Middle  Land,  Brahmanical  influences  were  stronger. 
Until  the  fourth  century  A.D.  the  celebrated  tooth  of  Buddha 
was  kept  at  Jagannath,  then  the  Jerusalem  of  the  Buddhists,  as  it  is 
now  of  the  Hindus.  Prinsep,  Lassen,  and  Burnouf  have  proved, 
partly  from  manuscripts,  principally  from  inscriptions,  that  Bud- 
dhism was  prevalent  in  many  parts  of  India  from  300  D.C.  to  400  A.D. 


loo  77/^5:  ANNALS   OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

But  the  habit  of  predicating  of  the  whole  of 
India  what  are  in  reality  local  customs  or  beliefs, 
has  exercised  a  less  injurious  effect  upon  the  popu- 
lar ideas  concerning  Indian  faith,  than  upon  the 
views  which  statesmen  have  adopted  with  regard 
to  the  social  institutions  and  practical  life  of  the 
Indian  people.  We  have  been  so  long  accus- 
tomed to  hear  Indian  society  termed  rigid  and 
artificial,  that  it  will  require  a  somewhat  lengthy 
disquisition  to  prove  that  caste,  as  described  by 
Manu  and  popularly  predicated  of  the  whole  Hin- 
dus, is  in  truth  only  predicable  of  the  Middle 
Land.  It  will  be  found,  however,  that  Indian  caste 
in  general,  and  particularly  in  Lower  Bengal,  is 
neither  rigid  nor  artificial,  but  is  built  upon  the 
universal  and  natural  basis  of  an  ancient  society — 
the  conquerors  and  the  conquered.  Manu's  four- 
fold classification  of  Brahmans,  Kshatryas,  Vaisyas, 
and  Sudras,  has  a  stiffness  and  an  inertia  about  it 
very  discouraging  to  Indian  social  reformers,  and 
affords  an  excuse  for  inaction  that  might  otherwise 


The  Chinese  travellers  Fa  Hian  and  Hiuan  Thsang  are  e^-idence  of 
its  existence  down  to  the  seventh  centurj'.  The  kings  of  Bengal, 
with  Gour  as  their  capital — a  dynasty  that  reigned  from  7S5  to  1040 
A.D. — were  Buddhists  at  least  until  900  A.D.  ;  and  the  creed  lurked 
in  various  out  of  the  way  places,  such  as  the  highlands  of  Beer- 
bhoom  and  Orissa,  until  the  time  of  the  English  Plantagenets.  The 
chief  temple  within  the  present  district  of  Beerbhoom  is  of  Buddhist 
origin.  —  Rajmahal,  p.  19,  etc.  Notes  and  Queries  suggested  by  a 
visit  to  Orissa,  8vo  pamphlet,  p.  2.  History,  etc.,  of  Eastern  India, 
from  the  Buchanan  Papers,  vols.  i.  and  ii.  Survey  Report  of  Beer- 
bhoom, p.  14,  by  Captain  Sherwill,  4to,  Calcutta  1855.  Saint- 
Hilaire's  '  Le  Bouddha  et  sa  Religion,'  8vo,  Paris  1862.  Sir  E. 
Tennent's  Ceylon,  parts  iii.  and  iv. 


CASTE,  loi 

be  stigmatized  as  sloth.  The  following  pages  will 
show  this  alleged  inertia  and  fourfold  classification 
to  be  disproved  by  the  history  of  the  people,  and 
will  exhibit  the  population  of  Bengal  as  naturally 
composed  of  two  distinct  ethnical  elements. 

In  the  Middle  Land,  peace  and  civil  security 
developed  social  distinctions  which  the  southern  emi- 
grants, engaged  in  constant  warfare  with  the  abori- 
gines, had  neither  leisure  to  think  of  nor  wealth  to 
support.  It  is  impossible  to  give  the  date  at  which 
the  rise  of  caste  took  place,  but  it  is  easy  to  say  at 
what  epoch  it  did  not  exist,  when  it  was  beginning  to 
make  its  influence  felt,  and  when  it  had  grown  into 
a  full-blown  dominant  institution  in  the  land.  The 
Rig  Veda  knows  little  or  nothing  of  caste,  although 
it  contains  verses  which  were  afterwards  twisted  into 
an  authoritative  sanction  for  it.^^  As  the  religious 
system  of  the  Hindus  developed,  so  also  did  their 
social  distinctions ;  and  the  Yajur  Veda  places  be- 
yond doubt,  that  in  the  district  in  which  it  was 
written,  Brahmanism  had  already  introduced  com- 
plicated religious  forms,  and  that  society  had 
acquiesced  to  a  certain  extent  in  the  cruel  differ- 
ences between  man  and  man  that  Brahmanism 
implies.  Before  the  compilation  of  national  cus- 
toms known  as  the  Book  of  Manu,  caste  had 
attained  its  final  development.  The  Book  of 
Manu,   however,    accurately   represented    the    state 

19  The  Purusha  Sukta  (R.  V.  x.  90).  The  allegorical  nature  of 
this  hymn  is  set  forth  in  the  Sanskrit  Texts,  part  i.  Dr.  Muir,  how- 
ever, has  kindly  shown  me  the  proof  sheets  of  his  2d  edition,  proving 
tlial  the  R.  V.  was  not  so  unconscious  of  caste  as  some  liave  alleged. 


I02  'JIfli  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

of  Indian  society  in  only  a  single  province — the 
Middle  Land.  On  the  west,  caste  never  crossed 
the  Indus,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  reached  by 
some  hundreds  of  miles  the  bank  of  that  river.  The 
Rajputs  did  not  accept  a  fourfold  classification  until 
within  historic  times.  Beyond  the  Indus  stretched 
the  Bahika  land,  peopled  with  Sanskrit-speaking 
tribes,  who  held  that  God  had  made  all  men  equal, 
and  that  He  was  to  be  worshipped  by  no  priestly 
formulas.  Beyond  them,  again,  the  whole  Aryans 
of  Cashmir  are  said  to  be  of  one  caste  ;^°  and 
indeed  everywhere  west  of  the  Middle  Land,  a  for- 
mal fourfold  classification  of  the  people  such  as 
Manu  records  is  unknown.  These  Sanskrit-speak- 
ing nations  on  the  west,  who,  rejecting  the  civilisa- 
tion of  the  Middle  Land,  stood  out  for  the  simple 
faith  and  customs  of  their  ancestors,  are  everywhere 
spoken  of  in  the  Brahmanical  section  of  Sanskrit 
literature  with  scorn  and  hatred.  The  accepting  or 
rejecting  of  caste  implied  the  accepting  or  rejecting 
of  the  whole  Brahmanical  ritual,  and  so  in  process  of 
time  it  became  the  great  issue  between  the  Aryans 
of  the  Middle  Land  and  those  of  the  west.  The 
Brahmanized  Hindus  tried  to  force  their  system  on 
their  fellow-countrymen ;  sometimes  peaceably  or 
by  the  bribe  of  admission  into  the  highest  caste,^^ 

''■^  1  limit  this  statement  expressly  to  the  Aryan  population  of 
Cashmir  :  the  remains  of  an  aboriginal  race,  with  the  mixed  castes 
that  sprung  from  it,  exist  there  as  elsewhere  throughout  in  India. 

2^  More  than  one  Sanskrit  legend  relates  how  princes  belonging 
to  the  inferior  classes  were  adopted  into  the  Brahman  caste.  The 
Brahmans  tell  the  stories  to  suit  their  own  purposes  ;  but  I  believe 
that  these  legends  record,  under  a  thin  disguise,  the  spread  of  the 


THE  BOUNDARIES  OE  CASTE.  103 

but  more  often  by  a  fierce  religious  warfare,  which 
has  left  its  intolerant  stamp  upon  all  Sanskrit  litera- 
ture subsequent  to  the  Vedic  hymns,  and  one  of 
whose  episodes  forms  the  first  national  struggle 
recorded  in  Sanskrit  history."  Caste  soon  became 
the  differentia  of  the  Brahmanized  Aryans ;  and 
Manu,  hitting  the  truth  nearer  than  he  guessed, 
held  that  the  Greeks  and  Persians  were  sprung 
from  errant  Kshatryas  who  had  lost  their  caste.'^^ 

Manu  gives  the  Himalayas  as  the  northern, 
and  the  Vindhya  range  as  the  southern  boundary' 
of  the  Middle  Land.  Beyond  those  mountains  it 
is  certain  that  caste,  as  represented  by  the  rigid 
fourfold  classification  in  Manu,  never  penetrated. 
Entire  communities  of  Aryans  in  southern  India 
claim  to  be  of  the  Brahman  caste,  and  when  a 
Kshatryan  family  or  colony  is  found  among  such 
a  population,  its  foreign  origin  or  comparatively 
recent  migration  southwards  can  generally  be  ascer- 
tained. Mixed  castes  abound  to  the  south  of  the 
Vindhyas,  as  to  the  north,  east,  and  west  of  them  ; 
but  these  mixed  castes  arose  not  from  intermarriage 
between  the  first  three  castes  mentioned  in  Manu, 
but  by  cohabitation  of  the  Aryan  settlers  with  the 
aborigines. 

Brahmanical  civilisation  before  the  caste  system  of  the  Middle  Land 
was  firmly  fixed. 

22  The  conflict  of  Parasu-Rama  with  the  Kshatryas,  and  his  final 
triumph  over  them.  Miillcr  compares  this  war  of  the  castes  to  the 
\owg  slrir^jrle  in  Greece  which  ended  in  the  erection  of  repuljlics  upon 
the  ruins  of  despotism. 

'■^^  The  Yavanas  and  Pahlavas.  The  Vishnu  I'urana  takes  liic 
same  view. 


104  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

As  Manu's  artificial  classification  of  the  people 
never  passed  in  its  integrity  beyond  the  Middle 
Land  to  the  north,  west,  or  south,  so  on  the  east, 
where  Lower  Bengal  begins,  there  caste  as  a.fourfold 
classification  ceases.  In  North  Bahar,  which  borders 
on  the  ancient  Middle  Land,  it  is  just  apparent.'^*  In 
South  Bahar,  which  adjoins  Lower  Bengal,  it  is  un- 
known ;  and  the  population  are  divided,  not  into  the 
four  castes  of  Manu,  but  into  Aryans,  non-Aryans, 
and  mixed  classes. 

One  important  difference,  however,  is  observable 
in  the  caste  to  which  the  Aryans  on  the  east  and 
those  on  the  west  of  the  Middle  Land  claim  to 
belong.  At  the  period  when  the  race  passed  the 
Indus  it  was  a  confederacy  of  fighting  tribes,  and 
amonof  the  colonies  it  left  on  the  west  of  that  river 
war  lonof  continued  to  be  the  chief  business  of  life. 
When,  therefore,  the  Brahmans  of  the  Middle  Land 
formed  their  fourfold  classification,  the  Western 
Rajputs  and  the  other  tribes  of  the  ancient  Bahika 
land  were  naturally  set  down  as  clans  of  the  mili- 
tary caste.  In  the  Holy  Land,  where  the  race 
pitched  its  tents  after  leaving  the  Indus,  and  still 
more  in  the  Land  of  the  Sacred  Singers,  peace 
developed  literature,  and  mental  attainments  rather 
than  physical  or  warlike  qualifications  became  the 

2*  Kshatiyas  exist  in  Bahar,  but  they  always  give  a  distinct 
account  of  themselves  as  migrating  in  small  bodies  from  the  north,  in 
comparatively  recent  times.  For  an  example,  see  'The  History, 
Antiquities,  etc.,  of  Eastern  India,'  from  the  Buchanan  MSS.,  vol.  ii. 
p.  121.  The  Kshatryas  of  Bahar  claim  to  be  of  greater  antiquity 
than  anv  of  the  isolated  families  in  Lower  Rencral. 


CASTE  IN  LOWER  BENGAL.  105 

fountain  of  honour."  The  *  religious  conceptions 
and  sacred  usages  which,'  to  quote  a  noble  sen- 
tence of  Roth's,  '  even  in  the  hymns  of  the  Rig 
Veda  we  can  see  advancing  from  a  simple  and 
unconnected  form  to  compact  and  multiform  shapes, 
had  now  spread  themselves  over  the  entire  life  of 
the  people,  and  in  the  hands  of  the  priests  had 
become  a  power  predominant  over  everything  else.' 
At  the  time  when  the  subsequent  Ar^'an  emigrants 
started  for  Lower  Bengal,  the  priestly  class  had 
been  recognised  as  the  head  of  society,  but  no  sharp 
distinctions  among  the  general  mass  of  the  people 
seem  to  have  been  formed.  The  settlers  in  Lower 
Bengal  naturally  set  up  as  Aryans  of  the  highest 
class  in  their  new  homes,  just  as  every  Englishman 
in  India  during  the  last  century  claimed  for  him- 
self the  title  of  Esquire.^**  The  Aryans  were  the 
aristocracy  of  Lower  Bengal,  the  Brahmans  were 
the  aristocracy  of  the  Middle  Land  ;  and  when  a 
rigid  division  of  the  people  took  place  in  the  parent 
country,  the  aristocracy  of  the  distant  province 
claimed  the  same  rank  and  the  same  title  as  the 
aristocracy  of  the  fatherland.      This  rank  was  never 

"^^  '  It  is  only  after  the  Aryan  tribes  had  advanced  southward,  and 
taken  quiet  possession  of  the  rich  plains  and  beautiful  groves  of 
Central  India,  that  they  seem  to  have  turned  all  their  energies  and 
thoughts  from  the  world  without  them  to  that  more  wonderful  nature 
which  they  perceived  within.' — Max  Miiller's  History  of  Ancient  San- 
skrit Literature,  8vo,  London  1859,  p.  25. 

"^^  Witness  '  The  Humble  Petition  of  Mr.  '  in  the  Cnhutlii 

Gazette  oi  the  15th  January  1789.  I  have  seen  an  advertisement  in 
an  early  Calcutta  paper,  in  which  a  military  man  notifies  that  ho 
disclaims  the  title  of  Esquire. 


io6  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

fully  given,  however.  The  mere  name  of  Brahmans 
the  Aryans  of  the  south-east  settlements  might 
easily  usurp,  but  the  Brahmans  of  the  Middle  Land 
never  admitted  them  to  equal  honour  with  them- 
selves. The  Brahmans  of  Lower  Bengal  bore  to 
the  Brahmans  of  Oudh  the  same  relation  that  the 
landed  gentry  of  Canada  or  Australia  bears  to  the 
landed  gentry  of  England.  Each  is  an  aristocracy, 
both  claim  the  title  of  Esquire,  but  each  is  composed 
of  elements  whose  social  history  is  widely  different, 
and  the  home  aristocracy  never  regard  the  success- 
ful settlers  as  their  equals  in  rank.  The  Brahmans 
of  the  Middle  Land  went  further  :  they  declared  the 
Brahmans  of  Lower  Bengal  inferior  not  merely  in  the 
social  scale,  but  in  religious  capabilities.  To  this 
day,  many  of  the  north  country  Brahmans  do  not  eat 
with  the  Brahmans  of  the  Lower  Valley ;  and  con- 
victed felons  from  the  north-west  will  suffer  repeated 
floggings  in  jail  for  contumacy,  rather  than  let  rice 
cooked  by  a  Bengal  Brahman  pass  their  lips.  For 
ages,  the  Lower  Bengal  Brahmans  were  incapable  of 
performing  the  more  solemn  sacrifices,  and  theyV/i- 
connubii  appears  to  have  been  cut  off  between  the 
Brahmans  of  the  south-east  and  those  of  the  Middle 
Land.  Later  colonies  of  northern  Brahmans  could 
form  no  legal  connection  with  Aryan  women  of  the 
Lower  Valley,  and  the  children  born  to  them  by  such 
mothers  were  renounced  as  illegitimate. 

The  population  of  Lower  Bengal  consists,  ac- 
cording to  the  pandits,  of  five  elements,  who  came 
into  the  country  in  the  following  order  :    \st,   The 


THE  ETHNOLOGY  OF  LOWER  BENGAL.      107 

aboriginal  non-Aryan  tribes ;  2d,  The  Vaidic  ami 
Saraswati  Brahmans,  who  formed  the  first  Arjan 
settlements  ;  ^d,  Kshatryan  refugees,  who  escaped 
the  extermination  of  their  caste  by  Parasu-Rama, 
with  isolated  Vaisya  families,  few  or  none  of  whom 
penetrated  below  Bahar ;  4///,  A  later  migration  of 
Brahmans,  circ.  900  a.d.,  represented  by  the  story 
of  the  five  Brahmans  brought  from  Canouj  by  Adbs- 
wara;  ^th,  Recent  emigrants  and  military  adventurers 
from  the  north,  Rajputs,  i.e.  Kshatryas,  Afghans,  and 
Mussulmans  of  diverse  races.  In  all  this  there  is 
nothino-  of  the  riijid  fourfold  classification  described 
by  Manu.  The  native  legend  regarding  the  intro- 
duction of  the  fourth  element  is  briefly  this.  King 
Adiswara  of  Gour,  wishing  to  perform  sacrifices 
for  which  the  Brahmans  of  the  Lower  Valley  were 
not  competent,  brought  five  Brahmans  from  Canouj. 
These  Brahmans  first  settled  on  the  east  side  of  the 
Ganges,  and  forming  connections  with  the  women 
of  the  country,  had  many  children,  whom  they 
called  Varindra.  When  they  were  fairly  estab- 
lished, their  lawful  wives  followed  them  from 
Canouj,  and  the  husbands,  leaving  their  concubines 
and  illefritimate  children  on  the  east  of  the  Ganofes 
(at  Bikrampur  in  Dacca),  crossed  the  river  with 
their  legal  wives  and  their  offspring.  From  these 
legitimate  children  the  Rari,  i.e.  the  Brahmans  of 
the  western  districts  of  Lower  Bengal,  are  de- 
scended. This  took  place  about  900  A.n..  ami 
the  rival  claims  of  the  old  and  the  new  settlers 
soon  became  a  source   of  national    distjuiet.      Two 


io8  TJIE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

centuries  afterwards,  Ballal  Sen,  the  last  Hindu 
sovereign  of  Bengal,  found  it  necessary  to  settle 
questions  of  precedence  by  a  comprehensive  classi- 
fication of  his  Aryan  subjects.  Many  of  the  older 
families  of  the  province  were  amalgamated  with  the 
new-comers.  Almost  all  of  pure  Aryan  descent 
were  admitted  to  equal  rights,  and  of  the  ancient 
settlers  very  few  recognised  descendants  now  pre- 
serve their  identity.^^  Several  mixed  castes  were 
derived  from  the  followers  of  the  Canouj  Brahmans 
(such  as  the  Cayasths)  ;  but  of  the  other  two 
Twice- Born  castes,  as  described  by  Manu,  viz. 
the  Kshatryan  and  the  Vaisya,  scarcely  a  single 
family  exists  in  the  southern  valley,  which  cannot 
trace  its  origin  to  the  north  within  comparatively 
recent  times,  and  the  rigid  fourfold  classification  of 
society  laid  down  by  Manu  is  practically  unknown 
in  Lower  Bengal. 

I  am  aware  that  this  conclusion  is  capable  of 
being  misunderstood,  and  likely  to  be  mis-stated. 
The  actual  condition  of  society,  with  its  cruel  dis- 
tinctions, will  be  cited  against  me.  Jagganath, 
Gya,  nay,  the  Holy  City  within  the  district  of 
Beerbhoom  itself,  will  be  enumerated  as  abiding 
testimonies  to  the  thoroughgoing  character  of  Hin- 
duism in  Lower  Bengal.  The  superstitions  of  those 
celebrated  shrines,  however,  are  easily  accounted 
for  by  the  strong  reaction  in   favour  of  Hinduism 

2^  This  account  is  abbreviated  from  the  statements  of  my  pandits, 
and  from  reports  of  professional  Hindu  genealogists.  See  also  Cole- 
brooke's  Examinations  of  the  Indian  Classes,  As.  Res.  vol.  v.,  and 
r.ssays,  vol.  ii.  pp.  187-90,  8vo,  1837. 


THE  PRIMITIVE  RACE.  109 

after  the  expulsion  of  Buddhism  only  eight  cen- 
turies ago.  The  social  distinctions,  more  cruel  in 
Lower  Bengal  perhaps  than  in  any  other  part  of 
India,  proceed  from  a  different  cause. 

The  Sanskrit-speaking  settlers  found  the  land 
already  peopled.  Their  predecessors  are  still  an 
ethnological  mystery,  and  except  in  a  few  frontier 
districts  like  Beerbhoom,  they  succumbed  so  com- 
pletely beneath  the  new-comers,  that  their  separate 
existence  has  been  forgotten  for  more  than  a  thou- 
sand years  by  the  composite  people  which  the}' 
helped  to  form.  As  countless  species  of  animals 
once  covered  the  earth's  surface  which  have  left 
no  type  in  the  zoology  of  the  present  day,  so  vast 
races  of  the  human  family  have  lived  and  worked 
out  their  civilisation  and  vanished,  with  regard  to 
whom  history  has  up  to  the  present  been  mute. 
Geologers  tell  us  that,  in  a  primeval  age,  myriads 
of  gigantic  birds,  of  which  no  representative 
remains,  left  their  footprints  in  the  sands  of 
Connecticut ;  that  they  waded  in  boundless  shal- 
lows now  dried  up  into  solid  stone,  feeding  upon 
mail-covered  fishes,  which  now  lie  side  by  side  with 
them  in  the  rock,  and  preyed  upon  by  monsters 
still  larger  than  themselves,  but  equally  extinct 
before  man  was  born.  The  primitive  races  of  India 
resemble  in  many  ways  these  birds  of  the  Lias. 
Like  them,  they  perished  in  prehistoric  times  ;  and 
of  many  of  them,  all  that  can  with  certainty  be  said 
is,  that  they  once  were  and  now  are  not.  Philt>logy, 
which  speaks  so  clearly  with  regard  to  other  extinct 


no     THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

races,  has  hitherto  had  nothing  definite  to  say 
respecting  them.  To  this  day  they  remain  an 
unclaimed,  ignoble  horde,  of  whose  origin  we  know 
nothing,  with  whom  not  one  of  the  great  races  will 
acknowledge  relationship,  and  who  occupy  the 
background  of  Indian  history  as  the  jungle  once 
covered  the  land,  only  to  prepare  the  soil  for  higher 
forms  of  life.^* 

The  conflict  with  the  children  of  the  soil  is  the 
first  historical  fact  related  in  Sanskrit  literature. 
The  passions  it  excited  intrude  themselves  alike  in 
the  hymns  of  the  priest,  the  maxims  of  the  lawgiver, 
and  the  legends  of  the  epic  poet.  Many  of  the 
Vedic  chants,  like  some  of  the  Psalms  of  David, 
were  poured  forth  as  prayers  for  deliverance,  or 
as  thanksgivings  for  victory.  They  describe  the 
enemy  in  the  strong,  telling  words  which  men  use 
in  moments  of  excitement ;  and  in  judging  of  the 
aborigines  from  the  delineations  of  Sanskrit  writers, 
we  must  remember  that  the  picture  is  by  an  un- 
friendly hand.  After  the  actual  struggle  was  over, 
and  the  beaten  races  had  fallen  back  into  the  forest, 
another  element  came  into  play  still  further  to  dis- 
tort the  Aryan  accounts  of  them.  They  shared  the 
fate  of  the  children  of  Rephaim^''  in  Semitic  history, 

^*  Lassen  barely  refrains  from  denying  their  existence. 

2^  The  giant  aborigines  of  Palestine,  '  who  belonged  so  entirely  to 
the  dim  distance,  that  their  name  "  Rephaim"  was  used  in  after- 
times  to  designate  the  huge  "  guardians,"  or  the  shadowy  ghosts  of 
the  world  below.' — Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Jewish  Church,  by 
Arthur  Penrhyn  Stanley,  D.D.,  8vo,  London  1863,  p.  208.  Cf.  also 
the  Shepherd  Tribes  of  Egypt  (Milman's  History  of  the  Jews,  vol. 
i.),  and  the  Typhonians,  or  subjects  of  the  Eastern  Pharaohs  who 


THE  TWO  ETHNICAL  ELEMENTS.  iii 

and  became  the  demons  and  fallen  anfjels  of  San- 
skrit  literature.^" 

The  population  of  Lower  Bengal  ethnically  con- 
sists, therefore,  of  two  elements  :  first,  the  Aryan 
invaders,  almost  all  of  whom  assumed  the  rank  of 
Brahmans  ;  second,  the  aborigines  whom  these 
invaders  found  living  in  the  land,  and  whom  they 
speedily  reduced  to  the  alternative  of  serfdom  on 
the  open  country  or  flight  into  the  jungle.  The 
great  gulf  between  the  conquerors  and  the  con- 
quered has  never  been  bridged ;  and  the  social 
distinctions  that  disgrace  Hindu  society  are  not 
distinctions  between  various  ranks  of  the  same 
people,  but  distinctions  between  too  widely  diverse 
and  long  hostile  races.  Manu's  fourfold  classifica- 
tion, which  we  have  seen  is  strictly  predicable  only 
of  the  Sanskrit  Centre  or  Middle  Land,  is  based  upon 
a  twofold  classification  applicable  to  Lower  Bengal 
and  every  other  part  of  India — to  wit,  the  Aryan,  or 
Twice- Born,  as  Manu  calls  them,  and  the  non- Aryan 
tribes.      Kshatryas  and  Vaisyas  are  to  be  found  in 

opposed  Mcnchcrcs,  but  in  Greek  literature  are  associated  with  the 
Hellenic  giant  and  demon  Typhon. — Osburne's  Monumental  History 
of  E<;ypt,  vol.  i.  p.  350,  8vo,  1S54. 

''"  The  Rakhshasas,  from  whose  power  the  ancient  sacrifice  im- 
plored the  protection  of  the  Sanskrit  gods,  and  who  are  represented 
in  the  person  of  Ravana  {i.e.  Rakhshasendra)  and  his  imps  at  Ben- 
gali theatricals  to  this  day.  The  aborigines  of  Ceylon  had  the  same 
opprobrious  name  affixed  to  them,  as  Chinese  travellers  and  Cingalese 
chroniclers  attest.  Sir  Emerson  Tennent  writes  the  word  as  '  Vakko,' 
evidently  the  same  as  '  Rakko,'  which  is  the  colloquial  form  of  the 
Sanskrit  Rakhshas. —  Mahawanso,  cap.  vii.  Rajavali,  p  172  ;  quoted 
in  a  note  to  Sir  Emerson  Tennent's  Ceylon,  vol.  i.  332  ;  cf.  also  328, 
370,  etc.,  tliird  edition. 


112  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

large  numbers  only  within  a  limited  circle  ;  but  the 
Brahman  and  the  Sudra,  with  the  mixed  classes  that 
sprang  from  them,  form  the  unalterable  elements  of 
the  whole  Hindu  population  throughout  India. 

How  these  ethnical  distinctions  became  em- 
bittered, it  is  not  difficult  to  understand.  The 
superiority  on  the  side  of  the  Aryans  was  so  great, 
that  they  looked  upon  the  aborigines  as  lower 
animals, ■''  in  the  same  way  as  the  Beerbhoom 
Brahman  of  the  present  day  who  goes  to  settle 
in  the  adjoining  Santal  highlands  despises,  and 
until  recently  enslaved,  the  humble  tribes  he  finds 
there.  In  every  point  in  which  two  races  can  be 
compared,  the  aborigines,  called  in  early  Sanskrit 
literature  Dasyans,''^  were  painfully  inferior.  Their 
speech  was  of  a  broken,  imperfect  type.  The  Aryan 
warrior  used  to  pray  for  victory  over  '  the  men  of 
the  inarticulate  utterance"*^  and  *  of  the  uncouth 
talk.'^*  From  the  lips  of  the  Aryan  flowed  a 
language   instinct  with   tenderness    and    power;    a 

^^  They  appear  in  the  great  epic  under  the  name  of  the  Monkey 
Tribes  ;  in  the  Himalayas  and  Ceylon  as  the  Snakes  (Nagas),  in 
which  form  they  may  also  be  seen  at  Hindu  theatricals  of  the  present 
day.  They  come  upon  the  stage  dressed  up  as  the  demon  inhabitants 
of  the  lower  regions  (Patala),  with  human  faces,  a  serpent's  tail,  and 
sometimes  with  broad  hoods  representing  the  expanded  neck  of  the 
Cobra  (Coluber  Naga). 

^  The  word  appears  as  Dasyu  and  Dasa.  The  latter  survives, 
unchanged,  as  a  family  name  among  the  Hinduized  aborigines  at 
this  day,  and  is  popularly  spelt  Doss. 

^'^  Mridhravach.     But  cf  Bohtlingk  and  Roth. 

3*  Anasa,  Mlechha.  Of  these  words  diverse  interpretations  have 
been  brought  forward.  The  rendering  above  given  has  ample  autho- 
rity on  its  side,  and  after  Professor  Goldstucker's  criticisms  this  is  as 
much  as  can  be  said  of  many  \'edic  epithets. 


■SANSKRIT  SPEECH.  1 13 

language  equipped  with  the  richest  inflections  and 
a  whole  phalanx  of  grammatical  forms  ;  one  which 
clearly  uttered  whatever  it  was  in  man's  lot  to  suffer, 
and  whatever  it  was  in  his  mind  to  conceive,  and 
which  from  the  beginning  of  recorded  time  stands 
forth  in  one  form  or  other  as  the  vehicle  of  his 
highest  intellectual  efforts.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
understand  the  contempt  with  which  the  Sanskrit- 
speaking  conquerors  regarded  a  speech  squeezed 
into  such  narrow  and  so  ignobly  objective  moulds 
as  that  of  the  ancient  Dasyans  or  their  descendants, 
the  present  hill-tribes  of  the  northern  frontier.  Of 
this  language  the  most  striking  features  are  its 
multitude  of  words  for  whatever  can  be  seen  or 
handled,  and  its  absolute  inability  to  express  reflex 
conceptions  of  the  intellect  ;^^  the  absence  of  terms 
representing  relationship  in  general,  and  conspicu- 
ously the  relationship  of  cause  and  effect  ;^^  its 
meagreness  in  giving  utterance  to  the  emotions, 
those  higher  forms  of  consciousness  in  which  pas- 
sion is  happily  blended  with  reflection  ;  and  its  total 
barrenness  of  any  expressions  to  shadow  forth  the 
mystery    of    man's    inward    life;" — a   language  of 

^*  In  Kocch,  Bodo,  and  Dhimal,  there  is  not  a  single  vernacular 
word  to  express  matter,  spirit,  space,  instinct,  reason,  consciousness, 
quantity,  degree,  or  the  like. — Essay  on  the  Kocch,  Bodo,  and  Dhimal 
Tribes,  by  B.  H.  Hodgson,  Esq.,  late  of  the  Bengal  Civil  Service. 
Vocabulary,  p.  1 1  et  seq. 

^^  In  Bodo  and  Dhimal,  cause  and  effect  cannot  be  expressed  at 
all,  and  in  Kocch  only  by  words  borrowed  direct  from  Sanskrit. — 
/^.  p.  13. 

^''  Nor  have  the  above  languages  any  terms  for  earth,  heaven, 
hell,  this  world,  or  the  next.  The  Dhimal-speaking  tribes  have 
adopted   pure   .Sanskrit   words  to   express  these   ideas.      The   Bodes 

VOL.   I.  II 


114  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

sensation  rather  than  of  perception  ;  of  the  seen 
rather  than  of  the  unseen  ;  of  the  present  rather 
than  of  the  future  and  the  past. 

Perhaps  the  circumstance  which  more  than  any 
other  single  cause  tended  to  widen  the  gulf  between 
the  races,  was  their  difference  in  colour.^*  The  in- 
vaders came  of  a  northern  stock,  and  deeply  felt 
that  repugnance  which  the  white  man  everywhere 
entertains  to  the  black.  The  ancient  singer  praises 
the  god  who  '  destroyed  the  Dasyans  and  protected 
the  Aryan  colour ;'^'^  and  'the  thunderer  who  be- 
stowed on  his  white  friends  the  fields,  bestowed  the 
sun,  bestowed  the  waters.'*"  Whatever  obscurity 
may  attach  to  the  latter  passage,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  the  abhorrence  with  which  the  singers 
speak  again  and  again  of  'the  black  skin.'*^  They 
tell  us  of  the  '  stormy  gods  w^ho  rush  on  like 
furious  bulls  and  scatter  the  black  skin;'  and  of 
'  the  black  skin,  the  hated  of  Indra,'  being  swept 
out  of  heaven.*^  'Indra,'  runs  another  text,  'pro- 
tected in  battle  the  Aryan  worshipper,  he  subdued 
the  lawless  for  Manu,  he  conquered  the  black 
skin,'"  and  the  sacrificer  poured  out  thanks  to  his 

have  a  word  for  the  visible  arch  of  the  sky,  but  beyond  it  their  imagi- 
nation does  not  rise. 

38  Muir's  Original  Sanskrit  Texts,  part  i.  p.  43 ;  part  ii.  p.  2S4, 
p.  323,  etc.  The  following  \'edic  quotations  are  taken  direct  from 
the  Texts,  as  I  have  not  at  present  the  means  of  referring  to  the 
hymns. 

s''  Rig  Veda,  iii.  34,  9.  ■•o  /^  j    ^^^  jg 

*i  '  Krishnam  twacham,'  Rig  Veda,  ix.  41,  i,  etc.;  an  epithet 
which  reappears,  says  Muir,  in  the  Sama  Veda,  i.  491,  and  ii. 
242. 

«  Rig  Veda,  ix.  73,  5.  <3  /^.  j.  13^^  g. 


'THE    VILE  DASYAN  colour:  115 

god  for  '  scattering  the  slave  bands  of  black  descent,' 
and  for  stamping  out  'the  vile  Dasyan  colour.'^^ 

A  third  source  of  detestation  on  the  part  of  the 
Aryan  for  the  aborigines  was  their  repulsive  habits 
of  eating.  They  respected  not  the  life  of  animals  ; 
some  of  them  ate  horse-flesh  ;  others  human  flesh  ; 
others,  again,  fed  on  the  uncooked  carcase ;  and  all 
made  use  of  animal  food  to  a  degree  which  shocked 
the  nicer  sensibilities  of  the  Aryan.  The  Vedic 
singers  speak  of  them  as  gross,  gluttonous  savages, 
and  concentrate  the  national  abhorrence  into  one 
stinging  epithet — '  The  Raw-Eaters.'^^ 

Another  source  of  deep  and  abiding  aversion  was 
the  paganism  of  the  Dasyans.  The  Aryan  brought 
with  him  highly  developed  beliefs,  and  a  stately 
array  of  religious  rites.**'  He  found  himself  among 
a  people  without  any  intelligible  faith,  and  in  bond- 
age to  the  basest  fears.  The  two  noblest  doctrines 
of  pre-Christian  religion — the  unity  of  God  and 
the  immortality  of  the  soul — appear  in  the  earliest 
Sanskrit  writings,  and  have  never  for  a  moment, 
amid  centuries  of  defeat  and  political  degradation, 
been  wholly  lost  sight  of  by  the  Sanskrit-speaking 

**  Rig  Veda,  ii.  20,  7,  and  ii.  12,  4.  The  '  Dasam  Wirnam 
adharam'  of  the  latter  verse  is  still  in  the  mouths  of  many  pandits 
who  never  had  a  copy  of  the  Veda  in  their  hands. 

^'•'  '  Amad.'  For  a  variety  of  phrases  iiuhcating  this  repugnance, 
see  Original  Sanskrit  Texts,  part  ii.  435. 

^^  Those  who  wish  to  realize  how  deeply  the  early  Indian  thinkers 
penetrated  the  problems  of  modern  ethics,  may  compare  llie  beautiful 
Hindu  belief,  that  whatever  we  love  is  loved  not  for  itself,  but  as  the 
dwelling-place  of  the  First  Self,  with  Jonathan  Edwards'  'Theory  of 
Degrees  of  Being.' 


ii6  'JlIE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

race.  The  truth  has  been  debased  and  overlaid 
with  error,  but  the  truth  has  always  remained.  At 
a  very  early  period  they  fell  into  a  mistake  natural 
to  an  imaginative  people,  and,  by  recognising  the 
Almighty  too  vividly  in  His  more  solemn  mani- 
festations, became  practically  polytheists,  worship- 
ping the  work  more  than  the  Worker,  the  creature 
rather  than  the  Creator.  But  an  intellectual  recoor- 
nition  of  the  unity  of  the  Deity  appears  equally 
amid  the  supplications  to  gods  many  in  the  Veda, 
and  the  multitudinous  superstitions  of  more  recent 
Hinduism.  The  ancient  Aryans'  'highest  object  of 
religion  was  to  restore  that  bond  by  which  their 
own  self  was  linked  to  the  Eternal  Self;"*'  and  the 
modern  pandit's  reply  to  the  missionary  who 
accuses  him  of  polytheism  is  :  '  Oh,  these  are 
only  various  manifestations  of  the  one  God ;  the 
same  as,  though  the  sun  be  one  in  the  heavens, 
yet  he  appears  in  multiform  reflections  upon  the 
lake.  The  various  sects  are  only  different  en- 
trances to  the  one  city.'''^ 

*^  Miiller's  History  of  Ancient  Sanskrit  Literature,  p.  19.  Dr. 
Muir,  in  part  iv.  of  his  Texts,  shows  how  each  of  the  great  sects 
worships  his  own  deity  as  the  one  supreme  god.  '  Glory  to  thee,' 
prays  the  Krishna-worshipper,  '  thou  maker  of  all,  thou  soul  of  all, 
thou  source  of  all,  Vishnu,  Conqueror,  Hari,  Krishna.'  Then  follows  a 
list  of  the  various  names  under  which  he  is  implored. — Sanskrit  Texts, 
iv.  p.  223. 

**  This  answer  is  mentioned  by  Mr.  Long  in  his  pamphlet  entitled 
Notes  on  Visits  to  Pandits,  p.  i,  8vo,  Calcutta.  I  have  more  than 
once  received  the  same  reply.  For  a  philosophical  description  of  the 
multiplication  of  gods,  see  Whately's  Dissertation,  Encyclopedia 
Britannica,  vol.  i.  p.  465,  eighth  edition  :  '  And  it  would  often 
happen  that  one  set  of  men  would  venerate  one  image,  and  others 


THE  DASYANS   WITHOUT  GODS.  117 

The  aborigines,  so  far  from  havin!:r  a  distinct 
conception  of  the  unity  of  God,  seemed  to  the 
Aryan  to  possess  no  conception  of  a  God  at  all. 
Their  highest  religious  emotion  was  vague  dread  ; 
and  four  Vedic  epithets,  with  others  equally  full 
of  detestation,  depict  them  as  the  '  Rejectors  of 
Indra,'  '  not  sacrificing,'  '  without  gods,'  and  'without 
rites.' '^ 

With  regard  to  another  point — a  point  which 
forms  the  theological  differentia  of  man  as  con- 
trasted with  the  beasts  that  perish — the  invaders  had 
been  vouchsafed  a  peculiarly  full  illumination,  while 
the  aborigines  remained  buried  in  primeval  night. 
The  Aryans  possessed  an  unwavering  assurance  of 
a  future  life.  The  lonely  journey  of  the  soul  after 
its  separation  from  the  body  formed,  indeed,  one  of 
the  first  mysteries  with  which  their  national  mind 
had  grappled,  and,  like  all  the  imaginative  races  of 
antiquity,  they  devised  a  being  more  divine  than  man, 
though  originally  not  equal  to  the  gods,  to  guide 
them  on  the  dark  passage.  While  the  Egyptian 
monarch  lay  wrapped  in  essences  beneath  the  pyra- 
mid, Theut  conducted  his  soiil  to  the  judgment  of 
the  dead.  Hermes  performed  the  same  office  for 
the  Greeks,  and   the   Romans  placed  the  cadiiceus 

another  somewhat  different,  thou^^h  originally  designed  to  represent 
the  same  being.  And  there  would  also  be  some  difference  in  the 
kind  of  worship  paid  to  each  of  these  images,  and  in  the  tales  related 
concerning  it,  so  that  by  degrees  some  of  them  would  come  to  be 
considered  as  so  many  distinct  gods.' 

*"•*  'Anindra,'  'Ayajyu,'  'Adeva,'  'Avrata.'  That  these  epithets 
were  not  applicable  to  all  the  aboriginal  tribes,  will  appear  in  the  next 
chapter.     In  some  places  they  probably  refer  to  Aryan  schismatics. 


ii8  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

in  the  hand  of  Mercury.  Azrail,  under  various 
names,  has  guided  the  Semitic  tribes  of  all  ages  and 
creeds  to  one  ultimate  neutral  ground.  Yama  was 
the  Nekropompos  of  the  Aryan  race.  The  earlier 
form  of  his  story  is  preserved  on  the  Persian  side 
of  the  Himalayas.  Yima,  runs  the  Zend  legend, 
was  a  monarch  in  that  primitive  time  when  sorrow, 
sickness,  and  death  were  unknown.  By  degrees 
sin  and  disease  crept  into  the  world,  the  slow  neces- 
sity of  death  hastened  its  step,  and  the  old  king 
retired  with  a  chosen  band  from  the  polluted  earth 
into  a  kinordom  where  he  still  reimis.  The  Sanskrit 
version  belongs  to  a  later  and  more  subjective 
period.  According  to  it,  Yama  was  the  first  man 
who  passed  through  death  into  immortality.  Hav- 
ing discovered  the  way  to  the  other  world,  he 
obtained  for  himself  a  kingdom  in  it,  and  the  tenth 
book  of  the  Rig  Veda  represents  him  as  guiding 
other  men  thither.  In  one  verse  he  is  seen  feast- 
ing under  a  leafy  tree  i'^"  in  others,  as  enthroned  in 
the  innermost  heaven,  and  granting  luminous  abodes 
to  the  pious. ^^  Meanwhile  his  two  brown  dogs, 
'  broad  of  nostril  and  of  a  hunorer  never  to  be 
satisfied,  wander  among  men,'^^  or,  like  Cerberus, 
guard  the  avenue  to  his  palace  along  which  the 
departed  are  exhorted  to  hurry  with  all  possible 
speed.  '  Reverence  to  Yama,  who  is  death  ;  to  him 
who  first  reached  the  river,  spying  out  a  road  for 

^°  Rig  Veda,  x.  135,  i.     Atharva  Veda,  xviii.  4,  3. 
•"  Rig  Veda,  ix.  113,  7,  8.     Id.  x.  14,  8,  9,  and  10. 
"*  Rig  Veda,  x.   14,  11,  and  12.     The  dogs  are  elsewhere  called 
black  and  spotted.     Atharva  Veda,  viii.  i,  9. 


ARYAN  IDEAS  UPON  IMMORTALITY.        119 

many ;  who  is  lord  of  the  two-footed  and  the  four- 
footed  creatures.' ^^  *  Worship  with  an  offering  King 
Yama,  the  assembler  of  men,  who  departed  to  the 
mighty  waters,  who  spied  out  a  road  for  many.''* 

Incremation  suggested  itself  to  the  devout  Aryan 
as  the  most  solemn  method  for  severing  the  mortal 
from  the  immortal  part  of  the  dead.  His  faith,  like 
our  own,  taught  him  to  look  upon  death  as  a  new 
birth  rather  than  as  the  annihilation  of  being ;  and 
for  him  the  fire  performed  the  office  of  a  liberator, 
not  of  a  destroyer.  As  a  man  derived  his  natural 
birth  from  his  parents,  and  a  partial  regeneration,  or 
second  birth,  by  the  performance  of  his  religious 
duties ;  so  the  fire,  by  setting  free  the  spiritual 
element  from  the  superincumbent  clay,  completed 
the  third  or  heavenly  birth.  His  friends  stood 
round  the  pyre  as  round  a  natal  bed,  and  com- 
manded his  eye  to  go  to  the  sun,  his  breath  to  the 
wind,  his  limbs  to  the  earth,  the  water  and  the 
plants  whence  they  had  been  derived.  But  '  as  for 
his  unborn  part,  do  thou,  Lord  (Agni),  quicken  it 
with  thy  heat ;  let  thy  flame  and  thy  brightness 
kindle  it ;  convey  it  to  the  world  of  the  righteous.'" 

Thirteen  years  ago.  Professor  Miiller  published  an 
essay  on  the  Funeral  Rites  of  the  Brahmans,  in  which 

•*  Atharva  Veda,  vi.  20,  3.  r>ut  cf.  Max  Miillcr's  Lectures,  2cl 
Series,  p.  515. 

^*  Rig  Veda,  x.  14,  i.  Those  who  would  pursue  tlic  subject 
further,  may  do  so  with  great  facility  in  Dr  Muir's  '  Yama',  Journal 
R.  A.  S.,  part  ii.,  1865,  whence  the  above  quotations  and  those 
immediately  following  are  derived. 

"*  Funeral  hymn  to  Agni,  to  be  chanted  while  the  body  was  being 
burned. 


120  TJIK  ANNALS  Ol'  RLIRAf.  BENGAL. 

lie  cites  a  sort  of  liturgy  with  which  the  Aryan  used 
to  bid  farewell  to  his  friend  while  the  body  lay  upon 
the  pyre.  '  Depart  thou,  depart  thou  by  the  ancient 
paths  to  the  place  whither  our  fathers  have  departed. 
Meet  with  the  ancient  ones  ;'^*'  meet  with  the  Lord 
of  Death  ;  obtain  thy  desires  in  heaven.  Throw- 
ing off  thine  imperfections,  go  to  thy  home.  Become 
united  with  a  body  ;  clothe  thyself  in  a  shining  form. 
Go  ye;  depart  ye;  hasten  ye  from  hence.'"  The 
responses  might  then  fitly  come  in  :  '  Let  him  depart 
to  those  for  whom  flow  the  rivers  of  nectar.  Let  him 
depart  to  those  who  through  meditation  have  ob- 
tained the  victory,  who  by  fixing  their  thoughts  on 
the  unseen  have  gone  to  heaven.  .  .  .  Let  him  depart 
to  the  mighty  in  battle,  to  the  heroes  who  have  laid 
down  their  lives  for  others,  to  those  who  have  be- 
stowed their  goods  on  the  poor.'^^  Returning  to 
the  direct  form  of  address  :  '  May  sweet  breezes 
blow  upon  thee.  May  the  water-shedding  angels 
bear  thee  upwards,  cooling  thee  with  their  swift 
motion  through  the  air,  and  sprinkling  thee  with 
dew.'  '  May  thy  soul  go  to  its  owni,  and  hasten  to 
the  fathers.'  The  service  might  fitly  conclude  with 
a  chorus  from  the  Veda  :  '  Bear  him,  carry  him  ;  let 
him,  with  all  his  faculties  complete,  go  to  the  world 
of  the  righteous.  Crossing  the  dark  valley  which 
spreadeth  boundless  around  him,  let  the  unborn 
soul  ascend  to  heaven.  .  .  .  Wash  the  feet  of  him 
who  is  stained  with  sin  ;  let  him  go  upwards  with 
cleansed    feet.      Crossing    the    gloom,    gazing   with 

*«  The  Pitrs.  «■  Rig  Veda,  x.  14.  68  /^.  x.  154. 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE  DESCRIBED.  121 

wonder  in  many  directions,  let  the  unborn  soul  go 
up  to  heaven.' ^^ 

Of  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  there  is  not  a 
trace  in  the  earlier  Veda.  The  circle  round  the 
pyre  sang  with  the  firm  assurance  that  their  friend 
went  direct  to  a  state  of  blessedness  and  reunion 
with  the  loved  ones  who  had  gone  before.  '  Do 
thou  conduct  us  to  heaven  (O  Lord),  let  us  be  with 
our  wives  and  children.' '''^  '  In  heaven,  where  our 
friends  dwell  in  bliss,  having  left  behind  the  infir- 
mities of  the  body,  free  from  lameness,  free  from 
crookedness  of  limb,  there  let  us  behold  our  parents 
and  our  children.' ^^  The  wife  also  is  to  be  united 
with  her  husband.^^  '  Place  me,  O  Pure  One,  in 
that  everlasting  and  unchanging  world,  where  light 
and  glory  are  found.  Make  me  immortal  in  the 
world  in  which  joys,  delights,  and  happiness  abide, 
where  the  desires  are  obtained. '*^^  'Truly,'  says 
Roth,  '  we  here  find,  not  without  astonishment, 
beautiful  conceptions  on  immortality,  expressed  in 
unadorned  laneua^e  with  childlike  conviction.' 

It  was  only  to  those,  however,  who  had  lived 
righteously  on  earth  that  this  bright  world  was 
open.  The  idea  of  a  future  state  as  one  of  retri- 
bution did  not  receive  full  development  till  a  later 
period    tlian    that    to   which    the    foregoing   hymns 

*"  Atharva  Veda,  ix.  5,  i.  ^'^  Atharva  Veda,  xii.  3,  17. 

^'  Atharva  Veda,  vi.  120,  3. 

^"^  Colcbrookc's  Essays,  i.  116,  etc.,  8vo,  1837.  Atharva  Veda,  ix. 
5,27. 

^^  Address  to  Soma,  the  abstract  deified  form  of  the  libation. — 
Rig  Veda,  ix.  113,  7  and  11. 


122  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

belong ;  but  one  of  the  tlieolo<^ical  treatises,  which 
had  for  their  object  the  interpretation  of  these 
hymns,  contains  the  following  remarkable  sentences  : 
'  In  the  next  world  they  place  a  man's  good  and 
evil  deeds  in  a  balance.  Which  of  the  two  shall 
turn  the  scale  that  he  shall  follow,  whether  it  be 
for  good  or  for  evil.  Now,  whosoever  knows  this, 
places  himself  in  the  balance  in  this  world,  and  is 
freed  from  being  weighed  in  the  next' 

The  Vedic  texts  cited  in  the  foregoing  pages 
evince  a  faith  in  immortality  infinitely  firmer  than 
anything  to  be  found  either  in  Semitic  writings,^*  or 
in  the  subsequent  Aryan  literature  of  Greece  and 
Rome.  The  Veda  represents  the  departed  soul  as 
taking  a  tangible  but  more  glorious  body,  and  as 
living  in  blessed  reunion  with  former  friends  and 
kinsmen.  Homer's  world  is  a  dim  uncertain  region, 
peopled  with  shadows — mostly  unhappy  ones ;  a 
world  so  repugnant  to  our  inborn  love  of  life  and 
sunshine,  that  Achilles  tells  Ulysses  he  would 
rather  be  a  servant  upon  earth  than  reign  over  all 
the  departed.  In  the  decline  of  paganism,  the 
philosophers  of  the  court  of  Julian,  reading  Plato 
by  the  light  of  St.  Paul,  could  find  much  that  was 
consoling  to  mortality  in  his  pages.  But  we  have 
the  amplest  evidence  that  the  uninspired  philosophy 
of  Greece  and  Rome  afforded  no  certain  hope  of 
immortality  to  its  most  accomplished  disciples. 
'  We    are    sufficiendy    acquainted,'    writes    Gibbon, 

«*  Even  the  Jewish   Bible   fails  to  inculcate  a  future  life  as  an 
inducement  to  virtuous  conduct  in  the  present  one. 


WHENCE  THESE  CONCEPTIONS  1  123 

'  with  the  eminent  persons  who  flourished  in  the 
age  of  Cicero  and  of  the  first  Cajsars — with  their 
actions,  their  characters,  their  motives — to  rest 
assured  that  their  conduct  in  this  hfe  was  never 
regulated  by  any  serious  conviction  of  the  rewards 
or  punishments  of  a  future  state.'  The  Tusculan 
Disputations  found  their  argument  for  a  state  of 
eternal  bliss  on  a  false  dilemma,  and  what  Cicero 
professes  to  revere  in  the  Grove,  he  scoffs  at  in  the 
Forum.  We  rise  from  the  dream  of  Scipio,  or 
from  the  arguments  by  which  the  philosophic  pagan 
obtains  the  consolinof  assurance  that  death  is  but 
a  change  of  life,  and  turning  to  a  speech  by  Cicero 
on  behalf  of  a  friend'''^  on  trial  for  a  capital  crime, 
we  find  that  a  future  life  is  a  matter  for  recluses  to 
amuse  themselves  with,  but  which  no  man  of  the 
world  would  allow  to  regulate  his  ordinary  actions. 

The  question  is  a  deeply  interesting  one.  How 
comes  it  that  these  old  singers  in  Northern  India 
had  clearer  and  more  profound  conceptions  of  man's 
destiny  than  the  philosophers  of  Greece  and  Rome  ? 
How  was  it  that  the  child  knew  more  than  the 
man,  and  that  the  light  of  nature  waxed  dimmer 
and  dimmer,  till  it  altogether  disappeared  ?  Were 
the  strong  simple  beliefs  of  the  earlier  time  echoes 
of  those  lessons  which  Adam  listened  to  in  the 
cool  of  the  day,  and  which  formed  a  common  stock 
of  inspired  truth  for  the  whole  primitive  race  of 
mankind  ? — echoes  that  floated  down  fiiinter  and 
more    faint,    comforting   the   untold    generations   ot 

^^  Pro  Cluontio. 


124  'I'lil'^  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  LUiNGAL. 

prehistoric  man,  till  they  died  away  amid  the 
clang  of  contending  schools,  and  the  arrogance  of 
unaided  reason  ?  This  view  interferes  not  with 
any  sound  theology.  '  In  the  career  of  Balaam,' 
says  Dr.  Stanley,  '  is  seen  that  recognition  of  divine 
inspiration  outside  the  chosen  people,  which  the 
narrowness  of  modern  times  has  been  so  eager 
to  deny,  but  which  the  Scriptures  are  always  ready 
to  acknowledge,  and,  by  acknowledging,  admit 
within  the  pale  of  the  universal  church  the  higher 
spirits  of  every  age  and  of  every  nation.' ^^ 

In  humiliating  contrast  with  the  Aryans'  assur- 
ance of  immortality  are  the  words  with  which  the 
aboriginal  tribes  of  the  northern  frontier  dismiss 
their  dead  from  this  world.  Of  eternity  they  have 
not  the  slightest  conception ;  in  some  of  their 
languages  the  longest  period  of  time  that  can  be 
expressed  is  the  duration  of  a  man's  life,  and  in 
one  aboriginal  tongue  the  highest  number  is  seven. ^^ 
The  great  object  of  these  aborigines  is  to  get  their 
dead  out  of  their  sight.  The  north-eastern  hill-men 
hide  the  corpse  in  a  hole  as  soon  as  the  breath  has 
left  it.  No  stately  rites  are  observed.  The  kins- 
men wash  themselves  at  the  nearest  stream,  and 
return  to  their  usual  work  immediately  after  the 
interment.  Among  the  tribes  that  have  developed 
funeral  ceremonies,  a  burial  is  only  an  occasion  for 

^'■'  Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  190.  Whately 
also  concedes  a  true  inspiration  to  Balaam. — Dissertation  on  the 
Rise,  Progress,  and  Corruptions  of  Christianity. 

^^  Bodo  language. — Essay  on  the  Kocch,  Bodo,  and  Dhimal 
Tribes,  by  B.  H.  Hodgson,  p.  117.     Svo.     Calcutta,  1S47. 


ABORIGINAL  FUNERAL  RITES.  125 

g-luttony  and  drunkenness.  When  the  feast  is  got 
ready,  they  repair  to  the  newly  made  grave,  and, 
presenting  food  and  drink  to  the  dead,  bid  farewell 
in  the  following  sentences  :  *  Take  and  eat.  Here- 
tofore  you  have  eaten  and  drunken  with  us ;  you 
can  do  so  no  more.  You  were  one  of  us ;  you  can 
be  so  no  longer.  We  come  no  more  to  you  ;  come 
you  not  to  us.'^*^  The  parting  is  a  final  one.  The 
Aryan  requiem  looked  forward  to  reunion  above  ; 
that  of  the  aboriginal  tribes  shrinks  from  the  dead 
as  from  an  undefined  horror,  and,  so  far  from  speak- 
ing of  a  meeting  hereafter,  begs  that  they  may  be 
spared  the  terrors  of  a  visit. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  on  the  unequal  degree 
of  enlightenment  possessed  by  the  Aryan  and 
aboriginal  races,  because'!  believe  that  it  affords 
the  true  explanation  of  those  cruel  social  distinc- 
tions which  divide  the  existing  population  of  India. 
The  Dasyan  appears  in  Sanskrit  history  first  as  an 
enemy,  then  as  an  evil  spirit,  then  as  a  lower  animal, 
and  finally  as  the  slave  of  the  nobler  race."^  The 
difference  was  infinitely  greater  than  that  between 

"**  Essay  on  the  Kocch,  Rodo,  and  Dhinial  Tribes,  p.  180.  The 
southern  aborigines  exhibit  a  higher  class  of  funeral  rites. 

*'"  The  monkey  owes  the  respect  with  which  the  Hindus  regard 
him  to  the  friendly  reception  that  some  of  the  aboriginal  nations 
(the  so-called  Monkey  tribes)  gave  to  the  Aryan  immigrants  who 
afterwards  enslaved  them.  Signor  Gorresio  has  fully  discussed  the 
subject  of  the  Monkey  Races,  in  his  'Dissertations  on  and  Notes  to 
the  Ramayana.'  The  gradations  of  the  aborigines — as  (i)  enemies, 
(2)  demons,  (3)  lower  animals,  (4)  slaves  of  the  Aryans  in  Ceylon 
—  are  well  marked.  —  Mahawanso,  chap,  xxxvii.  Rajavali,  p.  237. 
Rajarat-nacari,  p.  69.  Referred  to  in  Tcnnent's  Ceylon,  i.  370,  etc., 
note,  3d  edition. 


126  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  composite  parts  of  other  nati(^ns  of  antiquity; 
so  also  was  the  contempt  of  the  superior  for  the 
inferior  people.  This  contempt  has  left  its  mark 
on  every  page  of  Sanskrit  literature,  and  we  can 
imagine  the  haughty  Prakrit-speaking  lord  regard- 
ing his  bondsman's  broken  utterances  —  his  go-ho 
(man),  go-dttm  (leg),  po-^a  (belly) ^^ — not  with  the 
placid  contempt  of  the  Patrician  for  the  Plebs,  or 
even  with  the  deeper  disdain  of  the  Hellene  for  his 
Helot,  but  rather  with  the  hatred  and  loathing  of 
Swift's  Houyhnhnms  for  the  sputterings  of  their 
Yahoos. 

Nevertheless,  two  races  cannot  live  for  ages 
together  without  each  affecting  the  other.  The 
superior  may  force  the  inferior  into  its  own  moulds, 
but  it  cannot  help  being  itself  influenced  in  turn  ; 
and  the  aboricrinal  tribes  have  done  much  to  alter 
the  language,  religion,  and  political  destiny  of  their 
conquerors.  The  influence  of  the  aboriginal  ele- 
ment made  itself  felt  at  a  very  early  period  in  the 
Apabhransa  or  vernacular  form  of  Sanskrit  used  by 
the  low  castes.  It  is  termed  'a  provincial  jargon' 
by  Donaldson,  following  Colebrooke,  and  has  been 
elaborately  discussed  by  Dr.  Muir."  The  vernacu- 
lar language  of  India  is  divided  by  native  gram- 
marians into  two  parts,  one  derived  from  Sanskrit, 
the  other  from  the  aborig-inal  tono-ues.  In  Bencral 
the  aboriginal  element  is  called  the   Bhasha ;  in  the 

^°  A  valuable  list  of  aboriginal  words  will  be  found  in  the  Sanskrit 
Texts,  vol  ii.  p.  36  et  seq. 

''^  As.  Res.  vol.  vii.  reprint.  New  Cratylus,  p.  85,  8vo,  1839. 
Sanskrit  Texts,  part  ii.  chap.  i. 


INFLUENCE  OF  DASYANS  ON  ARYANS.      127 

south  of  India  it  passes  by  various  names,  such 
as  Atsu-Telugu,  or  more  generally  Desya.  The 
patois  of  Lower  Bengal,  particularly  as  spoken  by 
the  common  people  in  Beerbhoom  and  other  dis- 
tricts on  the  ethnographical  frontier,  is  full  of  words 
not  to  be  derived  from  Sanskrit ;  and  although  such 
words  are  carefully  excluded  from  written  Bengali, 
they  are  ever  in  the  mouths  of  the  husbandman,  the 
herdsman,  and  the  forester,  and  they  have  furnished 
the  domestic  lancruaofe  of  affection  in  which  the 
mother  speaks  to  her  child.  In  religion,  the  Aryans 
of  the  Lower  Valley  have  unquestionably  borrowed 
much  of  their  demon-worship  from  the  aborigines, 
and  of  that  anxiety  to  propitiate  the  malignant 
rather  than  serve  the  beneficent  deities,  which  now 
forms  so  marked  and  so  decfradine  a  feature  of 
Hindu  superstition.  Indeed,  I  shall  afterwards 
show  that  the  Sivites — a  sect  which  during  the  past 
six  centuries  has  drawn  within  itself  the  great 
majority  of  the  Indian  people — derived  its  object 
of  worship  from  the  aboriginal  tribes.  Whatever 
mythology  Siva  or  Rudra  may  originally  have 
belonged  to,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Siva- 
worship,  as  performed  in  Lower  Bengal,  is  the 
reverse  of  the  Aryan  spirit  of  devotion,  and  repre- 
sents the  superstition  of  the  black  races.  Signer 
Gorresio  points  out  how  in  the  old  times  the  chief 
object  of  adoration  among  the  aborigines  was  this 
terrible  deity,  whom  they  appeased  with  human 
blood.  The  first  aim  of  the  British  Government 
on  acquiring  a   province    has   always    been   to   put 


128  TJin  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

down  such  sacrifices  ;  but  in  seasons  of  scarcity,  the 
priests  of  Lower  Bengal  still  offer  up  children  to 
the  insatiable  demon  who  terrified  the  forest  tribes 
three  thousand  years  ago. 

During  1865-66  such  sacrifices  were  had  re- 
course to  in  order  to  avert  the  famine.  They  were 
few  in  number,  the  police  being  specially  on  the 
alert,  and  the  authorities  having  got  warning  by 
the  publicity  which  the  press  gave  to  the  two  cases 
that  were  brought  to  light.  The  following  are  the 
details  of  a  human  sacrifice  in  1866  in  the  Jessore 
district,  one  of  the  oldest  settled  and  most  enlight- 
ened parts  of  Bengal  :  '  A  Mahommedan  boy  about 
seven  years  of  age  was  found  in  the  scaffold-room 
adjoining  a  temple  of  Kali  (the  wife  of  Siva),  at 
Luckipassa,  with  his  neck  in  the  hai'cat,  or  wooden 
scaffold,  and  his  neck  cut.  The  tongue  was  fixed 
between  the  teeth,  the  eyes  open,  clotted  blood  on 
his  body,  which  was  quite  exposed,  and  two  cuts  of 
a  khundah  were  visible  on  the  neck.  The  sacrifice, 
it  seems,  was  not  completed,  for  the  object  is  entirely 
to  sever  the  head  from  the  body.  In  a  late  case  at 
Hooghly,  the  head  was  left  before  the  idol  decked 
with  flowers.'"  Among  the  aboriginal  tribes  to 
the  south-west  of  Beerbhoom  I  heard  vague  reports 
of  human  sacrifices  in  the  forests,  with  a  view  to 
procuring  the  early  arrival  of  the  rains. 

The  same  proneness  to  demon-worship  and 
deprecatory  rites  exhibits  itself  in  every  part  of 
India,  and  alwa)s  with  a  force  in  proportion  to  the 

"   The  Englishman  of  the  igih  May  iS66.     Calcutta. 


JNI<LUENCE  OF  ABORIGINAL  RITES.         129 

strength    of    the    aboriginal    element    in    the    local 
population.      In    Northern    India,    throughout   the 
whole  Middle   Land  of  Manu,  the  aborigines  com- 
pletely succumbed  beneath  the  Aryans,  and  demon- 
worship  hardly  appears.      In   Lower   Bengal,  where 
the  Aryan  element  did   not  wholly  overpower  the 
aboriginal,    demon-worship    in    a    mitigated    shape 
forms  part  of  the  popular  rites  ;  among  the  forest 
tribes  of  the  central  table-land,  where  the  Aryans 
never  settled,  it  is  the  only  religion  known  ;  and  in 
Ceylon,  where  they  settled  in  comparatively  small 
numbers,  it  lies  at  the  root  of  the  whole  rural  wor- 
ship.     The  strictest  of  the  Hindu  kings  of  Ceylon 
found    himself    compelled    to    support    the    village 
devil-dancers  at  the  public  cost.     Buddhism  over- 
powered   Hinduism,    but    it    wholly    failed    to    put 
down,  and  at  length  was  fain  to  connive  at  demon- 
worship  ;    the   Portuguese  and   Dutch  clergy  could 
convert  the  people  from  Buddhism,  but  lament  their 
inability  to  weaken  the  tenacity  of  the  Cinghalese 
to  devil-sacrifices ;  and  Wesleyan  and  Baptist  mis- 
sionaries  in    Ceylon,   while    able   to  make    Protes- 
tants of  Roman  Catholics,  cannot  purify  their  most 
promising  catechumens  of  these  aboriginal  supersti- 
tions." 

A  more  pleasing  subject  is  the  worship  of  the 
village  and  household  gods  in  Lower  Bengal,— a 
harmless  superstition  which  the  Hindus  have  unmis- 
takeably  derived  from  the  aboriginal  tribes.  How 
this  worship  is  carried  on  by  the  hill-races,  I   shall 

'■^  Sir  Emerson  Tenncnt's  Ceylon,  i.  542,  3d  edition. 
VOL.   I.  I 


I30-'        TIIK  ANNA  IS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

afterwards  describe.      On  the  plains,  the  village  god 
has  ever  been  an  object  of  veneration  with  the  low 
castes  of  mixed  descent,  rather  than  of  the  Brah- 
mans,   and    in   many  places   the  worship   has   alto- 
gether died  out  among  the  higher  ranks.     At  the 
beginning  of  this  century,  however,  Buchanan  found 
it  existing  everywhere  throughout  the  north-western 
districts  of  Lower  Bengal.     *  The  vulgar,'  he  says, 
'  have  never  been  entirely  able  to  abandon  the  wor- 
ship of  the  village  deities,  and  imitate  their  ancestors 
either  by  making  such  offerings  as  before  mentioned 
(betel,  red  lead,  rice,  water)  to  an  anonymous  deity, 
under  whose  protection  they  suppose  their  village 
to  be,  or  call  by  that  name  various  ghosts  that  have 
become  objects  of  worship,  or  various  of  the  Hindu 
Devatas.     The  ghosts,  in  fact,  and  the  others  called 
village  deities,  seem  to  be  the  gods  most  usually 
applied  to  in  cases  of  danger  by  all  ranks,  and  their 
favour  is  courted  with   bloody  sacrifices  and  other 
offerings.     They  are  not  in  general  represented  by 
images,   nor  have   they   temples ;   but   the   deity  is 
represented   by  a   lump  of  clay,  sometimes   placed 
under  a  tree,  and  provided  with  a  priest  of  some 
low  tribe,' ^*  i.e.  sprung  from  the  aboriginal  element 
in   the  population.      Several  of  these  village  gods 
are  older  than  the  Arj'^an  settlement,  being  deified 
personages  sprung  from  the  aboriginal  tribes,  whose 
distinctive  nationality  has   been  forgotten  for  ages 
in  the  districts  where  their  representative  men  are 

'^  History,  etc.,  of  Eastern  India,  from  the  Buchanan  MSS.,  vol. 
i.  p.  190. 


THE   VILLAGE  GODS.  131 

still  worshipped.  Everywhere  the  ceremonies  bear 
the  stamp  of  the  old  superstitious  terrors,  and  the 
carnivorous,  gluttonous  habits  of  the  black  races. 
Indeed,  Buchanan  well  describes  them  as  'sacrifices 
made  partly  from  fear,  and  partly  to  gratify  the 
appetite  for  flesh.'"  The  fierce  aboriginal  instincts, 
even  in  the  mixed  castes,  who  approach  nearest  to 
the  Aryans,  and  accept  in  a  greater  degree  than 
their  neighbours  the  restraints  of  Hinduism,  break 
loose  on  such  festivals  ;  and  cowherds  have  been 
seen  to  feed  voraciously  on  swine-flesh,  which  at  all 
other  times  they  regard  with  abhorrence.  In  Beer- 
bhoom,  particularly  in  the  western  border-land,  this 
worship  is  very  popular,  and  once  a-year  the  whole 
capital  repairs  to  a  shrine  in  the  jungle,  and  there 
makes  simple  offerings  to  a  ghost  who  dwells  in  a 
Bela-tree.'*'  In  spite  of  the  tree  being,  at  the  most, 
seventy  years  old,  the  common  people  claim  the 
greatest  antiquity  for  the  shrine  ;  and  tradition  says, 
that  the  three  trees  which  now  mark  the  spot 
neither  grow  thicker  nor  increase  in  height,  but 
remain  the  same  for  ever.  As  in  all  ceremonies 
which  partake  of  the  aboriginal  worship,  blood  is 

^'  History,  etc.,  of  Eastern  India,  from  the  Buchanan  MSS.,  vol. 
i.  p.  194. 

'^  The  shrine  is  situated  far  in  the  jungle  between  Pattra  village 
and  Nagri,  some  distance  past  Buttaspore.  It  consists  of  three  trees  : 
a  Bela  tree  on  the  left,  in  which  the  ghost  resides,  and  which  is 
marked  at  the  foot  with  blood  ;  in  the  middle  is  a  Kachmula  tree,  and 
on  the  right  a  Saura  tree.  Devotees  throw  down  their  offerings  of 
earth,  rice,  and  money  before  the  trees,  while  a  priest  stands  ready  to 
strike  off  at  a  single  blow  the  heads  of  such  victims  as  are  presented, 
returning  the  body  with  his  blessing  to  the  offerer. 


i32v/       THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

copiously  poured  forth,  and  tlie  day  ends  with  a 
feast  upon  the  victims.  The  very  offerings  bear 
witness  to  the  primitive  state  of  the  tribes  among 
whom  the  superstition  took  its  rise.  Only  the  rich 
sacrifice  goats,  the  ordinary  oblation  being  a  handful 
of  earth  thrown  down  before  the  divinity,  with  a 
few  grains  of  rice  or  a  copper  coin  from  those  who 
can  afford  it. 

The  difference  between  the  worship  of  the  abori- 
ginal Siva  and  of  the  village  deities  is,  that  the 
former  has  been  adopted  by  the  Brahmans  or 
Hindus  of  pure  Aryan  descent,  while  the  latter 
have  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  mixed  mass  of 
the  population.  Yet,  in  ancient  times,  Siva-worship, 
now  universal  throughout  the  whole  lower  valley  of 
the  Ganges,  seems  to  have  been  as  unpopular  with 
the  Brahmans  as  the  simple  village  divinities  now 
are ;  while  even  the  most  despised  of  these  latter 
relics  of  antiquity  at  the  present  day  finds  some 
needy  priest  of  the  sacred  class  to  officiate  at  its 
shrine.  Siva  is  not,  indeed,  the  only  aboriginal  deity 
who  has  risen  to  distinction  among  the  mixed  people 
of  Bengal ;"  but  he  happened  to  resemble  in  many 
particulars  a  Sanskrit  divinity  with  whom  he  became 
identified,  and  whose  name  he  now  bears.  It  is 
curious  to  notice  that  Siva-worship,  like  demon- 
worship  and  the  adoration  of  the  village  gods,  has 
a  hold  on  the  people   always  in  proportion  to  the 

'"  Buchanan  speaks  of  a  village  god  of  quite  modern  origin,  Malik 
Baya  by  name,  who  was  universally  worshipped  in  Bahar  and  the 
adjoining  countries.     Many  others  might  be  mentioned. 


THE  ABORIGINAL  GOD  SIVA.  133 

Strength  of  the  aboriginal  element.  His  great 
shrines  are  among  the  hills  which  separate  the 
aboriginal  from  the  Aryan  races,  or  on  some  other 
frontier  of  Sanskrit  civilisation.  The  scenes  of  his 
adventures  are  placed  among  the  Himalayas,  and 
thousands  of  pilgrims  travel  every  year  to  his  altars 
in  the  higrhlands  of  Beerbhoom.  As  Professor  Wil- 
son  justly  remarks,  Siva-worship  has  ever  been  one 
of  mystery  ;  a  worship  bare  of  the  charming  legends 
which  grew  up  so  luxuriantly  around  the  objects 
of  adoration  of  the  more  cultivated  race,  and  one 
whose  sole  visible  representation  is  a  rude  emblem. ^^ 
Yet  Siva-worship  is  the  only  form  of  religion  which 
has  now  any  hold  on  the  masses  in  the  Lower 
Valley.  Krishna  or  Vishnu  is  the  god  of  the 
higher  castes,  and  his  worship  is  looked  upon  as 
a  spectacle  or  entertainment  rather  than  as  a  serious 
office  of  religion.  In  all  time  of  need  it  is  on  Siva 
— a  deity  scarcely  known  to  the  earliest  Aryan 
writers — that  the  Bengali  populace  calls. 

I  hope  that  my  desire  fully  to  bring  out  the 
effect  of  the  aboriginal  superstitions  on  the  religion 
of  the  Hindus  has  not  led  me  to  overstate  the 
truth.  The  impossibility  of  applying  the  Aryan 
faith,  as  represented  in  classical  literature,  to  the 
existing  religion  of  Lower  Bengal,  first  attracted 
my  attention  to  the  subject.  Conversations  with 
learned   Brahmans   suofijested   that  the  wide   differ- 

^^  Essays  and  Lectures  on  the  Religion  of  the  Hindus,  by  H.  H. 
Wilson.  Collected  Works,  i.  189,  Triibner,  1862.  The  ori;^in  of 
Siva-worship  will  be  minutely  discussed  in  (he  following  chapter. 


1,54  TJIE  ANNALS  OL  RURAL  BENGAL. 

ence  between  their  own  doctrines,  even  when  most 
orthodox,  and  the  popular  behefs  of  Hinduism,  was 
a  difference  not  only  in  degree,  but  in  kind, — a  differ- 
ence not  of  education,  but  of  race.     In  this  difference 
lies  the  explanation  of  the  esoteric  and  the  exoteric 
religions  of  the   Hindus;    the   former  representing 
the  faith  which  the  Aryan  settlers  transmitted  to 
their  children  of  pure  descent,  the  latter  the  patch- 
work of  superstitions  which  the   mixed  population 
derived  from    the  black-skinned,  human-sacrilficing, 
flesh-eating  forest  tribes.     The  widespread  corrup- 
tion of  Aryan  faith   which   followed,   according  to 
Sanskrit  authors,    immediately  on  the  mingling  of 
the  two  races  and  the  consequent  growth  of  mixed 
castes,^^  affords  strong  corroborative  proof  of  this 
view ;   and    the    religion   of  the  inferior   Eurasians, 
sprung    indiscriminately    from    Portuguese,    Dutch, 
French,    English,   Hindu,  and   Mussulman  parents, 
is  as  degrading,  if  not  so  idolatrous,  as  that  of  the 
mixed  castes  of  ancient  India.     But  what  eventually 
led   me  to  diverge  so  widely  from  the  commonly 
received  view  was  a  three  years'  residence  on  the 
border-land  between  the  H  indus  and  the  aborigines. 
The  population  of  the  hills  and  of  the  plains  glide 
into  one  another,  carrying  with  them  their  respective 
customs,  beliefs,  and  superstitions.     From  the  black 
squat  tribes  who  inhabit  the  tops  of  the  mountains, 
to  the  tall  olive-coloured  Brahman  of  the  capital  of 
Beerbhoom,  with  his   intellectual  brow,  calm  eyes, 

''  Known  to  English  readers  as  the  '  Burrun  Sunker." — Halhed's 
Gentoo  Code,  Preface,  p.  103,  8vo,  17S1. 


S/VA  AND  THE   VILLAGE  GODS.  135 

and  high  but  narrow  head,  there  are  a  hundred 
imperceptible  gradations  through  the  aborigines  of 
the  slopes  and  the  low  castes  of  the  valleys.'**'  So, 
too,  with  their  religion.  It  is  easy  to  point  out 
superstitions  which  in  some  parts  are  considered  as 
purely  aboriginal,  and  which  the  Brahmans  regard 
with  all  the  aversion  that  the  Levites  entertained 
toward  the  abominations  of  the  Canaanites,  but 
which  in  other  districts  hold  a  position  more  than 
half-way  between  the  two  religions.  This  is  par- 
ticularly noticeable  in  the  worship  of  the  village 
deities.  Where  the  population  is  entirely  aboriginal, 
such  rites  are  held  to  be  purely  aboriginal,  and  no 
respectable  Brahman  would  pollute  himself  by  offi- 
ciating at  them.  Where  the  population  is  mixed, 
and  the  semi-Aryan  masses  worship  the  old  village 
or  forest  deities,  the  worship  is  deemed  half  Hindu, 
and  some  necessitous  priest  is  found  to  undertake 
the  office.  In  still  more  perfectly  Hinduized  dis- 
tricts, a  little  fraternity  of  Brahmans  may  be  found 
attached  to  each  favourite  village  god,  and  in  some 
places  such  deities  form  the  popular  worship  of  the 
whole  Hindu  people.  From  the  ghost-worship  in 
the  Beerbhoom  jungle,  and  the  sacrifices  to  Malik 
Baya  and  similar  deified  personages  in  Bahar,  to  the 
worship  of  Siva,  is  only  a  step  ;  and  it  is  impossible 
to  study  the  border  population  without  coming  to 
the  conclusion,   that    Siva,   now  universally  adored 

^"  Bowries,  Bagdis,  etc.,  arc  found  both  in  the  hills  and  on  tlu- 
plains.  In  the  courts  of  justice  it  is  constantly  necessary  to  ask  wit- 
nesses belonging  to  these  castes  whether  they  belong  to  the  Hindu  or 
the  Santal  {i.e.  aboriginal)  families  of  the  same  patronymic. 


136  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

by  the  Bengali  people,  with  his  colleges  of  priests 
in  every  city,  his  conical  shrines  on  every  road-side, 
and  his  noble  flights  of  steps  at  every  few  miles 
along  the  holy  river,  is  only  the  last  and  highest 
link  of  an  uninterrupted  chain  of  superstitions  which 
unites  the  two  races. 

Marked  as  the  influence  of  the  aboriginal  tribes 
has  been  upon  the  language  of  Bengal,  still  more 
marked  and  pernicious  as  their  influence  has  been 
upon  its  religion,  they  have  exercised  an  infinitely 
more  abiding  and  more  baneful  effect  upon  the 
social  condition  and  the  political  destiny  of  the 
people.  It  is  chiefly  to  the  presence  of  a  hetero- 
geneous population  of  mixed  descent,  the  Bengalis 
owe  it  that  they  have  never  been  a  nation  ;  for 
two  races,  the  one  consisting  of  masters,  the  other 
of  slaves,  are  not  easily  welded  into  a  single  na- 
tionality. Concession  must  precede  union,  and  a 
people  has  to  make  some  advance  tow^ards  being 
one  socially  before  it  can  become  one  politically. 
During  ages  the  Sanskrit  element  kept  disdainfully 
aloof  from  the  aboriginal,  denying  it  every  civil, 
political,  and  religious  right.  Not  to  speak  of  the 
J71S  snffi'agii,  or  the  jus  honoi'iim,  the  J2is  commercii 
was  granted  only  under  the  severest  restrictions, 
and  upon  the  most  unfavourable  terms,  to  the  servile 
race.  The  meanest  trades  alone  were  open  to  it ; 
and  while  the  twice-born  tribes  retained  all  the 
more  profitable  and  honourable  branches  of  in- 
dustry as  their  heirlooms,  they  could  at  an)'  time 
set  up  as   ri\'als  to  the  low  castes   in   the  wonted 


THE  ABORIGINES  DEGRADED.  137 

occupations  of  the  latter,  if  necessity  or  conveni- 
ence urged  them  so  to  do.  There  was  one  law 
of  inheritance  for  the  Aryan,  another  for  the  non- 
Aryan  f^  and  of  the  humanizing  influences  by  which 
intermarriage  reconciles  hostile  races  they  knew 
nothinof.  Cohabitation  between  the  rulincr  and  the 
servile  castes  fell  in  certain  cases  within  the  penal- 
ties of  sacrilege  and  incest ;  and  to  this  day  the  most 
enliofhtened  Hindu  would  regard  such  a  union  with 
all  the  abhorrence  that  the  Romans  felt  towards  the 
marriage  of  their  emperor  with  the  German  princess 
who,  though  according  to  international  equity  the 
wife,  has  come  down  in  history  as  the  concubine  of 
Gallienus. 

For  this  disdain  the  Aryans  of  Lower  Bengal 
have  had  to  pay  dearly.  It  is  a  bad  thing  for  a 
race  to  be  able  to  get  other  people  to  do  its  work 
during  three  thousand  years.  The  higher  classes 
of  Hindu  society,  by  their  inbred  dislike  and  con- 
tempt for  manual  industry,  disabled  themselves 
from  becoming  a  wealthy  or  powerful  people,  and 
are  at  this  moment  being  ousted  from  many  posts 
of  emolument  by  the  despised  mixed  multitude  who 
have  for  ages  done  the  work  of  the  country,  but 
who  now  for  the  first  time  are  secured  by  an  im- 
partial government  in  the  fruits  of  their  labour. 
Even  in  education,  the  immemorial  monopoly  of 
the  Brahmans,  the  competition  of  the  non-Aryan 
element  is  be<'innincT  to  be  felt.  In  the  Beer- 
bhoom   public   school,  which    stands    first   of   three 

*'   Manava-dharnia-saslra,  ix.  156,  157.     410,  1S25. 


138  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

hundred  educational  institutions  in  the  south-west 
division  of  Lower  Bengal,**'  a  man  belonging  to 
what  used  to  be  considered  a  very  degraded  caste 
is  now  head-master ;  and  throughout  the  whole 
country,  thousands  of  Brahman  boys  are  instructed 
by  teachers  whose  family  names  (Dass)  proclaim 
them  the  descendants  of  the  enslaved  aboriginal 
tribes  (Dasyu).  Accustomed  to  look  upon  toil  as 
a  mark  of  slavery,  the  Hindus  have  never  worked 
more  than  was  necessary  to  supply  their  wants. 
Capital,  therefore,  the  surplus  of  production  above 
consumption,  has  never  existed  ;  and  in  the  absence 
of  capital,  any  high  advance  in  material  civilisation 
is  impossible.  Another  element  of  such  an  advance, 
co-operation,  has  been  equally  unknown.  Division 
of  labour,  in  its  literal  sense  of  giving  to  every  man 
a  separate  employment,  has  indeed  been  carried  to 
its  utmost  length  ;  but  the  division  of  labour,  in  its 
economical  signification  as  a  method  of  co-operation, 
has  been  rendered  impossible  by  the  contempt 
which  divides  man  from  man.  On  this  subject, 
false  appearances,  and  inaccurate  names  for  these 
appearances,  have  led  many  writers  into  error. 
Division  of  labour,  as  a  term  of  Political  Economy, 
means  a  division  of  processes  in  order  to  an  ulti- 
mate combination  of  results.  Division  of  labour, 
as  predicable  of  Indian  art  or  manufacture,  means  a 
division  of  results  (each  man  being  able  to  do  only 
one  thing)  effected  by  a  combination  of  processes 

"-  Report   on    Public    Instruction.      Lower    Provinces,    1865-66. 
Appendi.\,  p.  235. 


IND 0-AR  VAN  PR  O CRESS  STOPPED.  1 3 9 

(each  man  performing  the  whole  of  the  processes 
requisite  to  produce  the  single  result).  The  Indo- 
Aryans  have  paid  a  heavy  penalty  for  debasin**- 
the  humbler  children  of  the  soil,  by  that  stagna- 
tion and  incapability  of  national  advancement  which 
has  formed  the  most  conspicuous  difference  be- 
tween them  and  other  families  of  the  same  noble 
stock.  They  refused  to  share  their  light  with  the 
people  who  dwelt  in  darkness,  and  for  ages  any 
further  illumination  has  been  denied  to  themselves. 
But  this  has  not  been  their  whole  punishment. 
In  the  pride  of  intellect,  they  condemned  a  people 
strong-armed,  but  of  meagre  intelligence,  to  per- 
petual slavery  while  living,  and  refused  them  admit- 
tance to  their  own  bright  world  when  dead.  Hence 
the  reticence  of  the  Bengali  people,  each  caste 
keeping  its  sympathies  for  its  own  members,  dread- 
ing the  classes  above  it  as  conquerors  or  tyrants, 
and  disdaining  to  admit  the  classes  below  it  into 
its  confidence.  In  their  turn,  the  Aryan  population 
of  India  have  been  subdued  by  successive  weaves 
of  conquerors,  inferior  to  them  in  their  boasted 
intellect,  but  able  to  wield  the  sword  with  a  more 
powerful  right  hand  than  is  given  to  a  people  who 
shift  the  labour  of  life  on  to  servile  shoulders. 
Afghan,  Tartar,  and  Mogul,  found  the  Indo- 
Aryans  effeminated  by  long  sloth,  divided  amongst 
themselves,  and  devoid  of  any  spirit  of  nation- 
ality. Thus  for  seven  centuries  has  Providence 
humbled  the  disdainful  spirit  of  Hinduism  beneath 
the  heel  of  barbarian  invaders,  grinding  together  all 


I40  riJR  ANNALS  01'  RURAL  BENGAL. 

classes  and  sects  as  upon  the  nether  millstone,  and 
slowly  bringing  on  the  time  foretold  in  the  Sanskrit 
Book  of  the  Future,^^  when  the  Indian  people  shall 
be  of  one  caste,  and  form  one  nation.  That  this 
time  is  now  not  far  off,  no  one  who  is  acquainted 
with  the  Bengalis  of  the  present  day  will  doubt. 
They  have  about  them  the  capabilities  of  a  noble 
people.  What  they  want  is  social  amalgamation, 
to  be  effected,  not  as  the  Sanskrit  prophet  predicts, 
by  the  universal  corruption  of  the  Indian  races,  but 
as  the  Christian  devoutly  hopes,  by  their  universal 
regeneration.^* 

Having  thus  unfolded  the  terms  upon  which  the 
Aryan  and  aboriginal  races  combined  to  form  the 
mixed  Hindu  population  of  the  lowlands,  I  proceed 
to  examine  the  condition  of  the  tribes  who,  among 
the  hills  and  western  fastnesses,  have  preserved 
their  primitive  descent  intact. 

^^  The  Bhavishya  Purana. 

**  Throughout  this  chapter  I  have  stated  my  own  views  without 
enlarging  upon,  or  sometimes  even  adverting  to,  the  existence  of  dif- 
ferent opinions.  I  have  done  so  not  from  want  of  respect  for  the 
views  of  others,  but  because  the  nature  of  the  work  precluded  the 
discussions  that  such  statements  would  lead  to.  To  take  a  single 
instance.  Vedic  scholars  are  at  variance  as  to  the  meaning  of  Dasyu, 
some  translating  it  as  '  demon,'  others  understanding  it  to  refer  to  the 
aborigines.  I  have  accepted  the  latter  view  without  comment  ;  and  I 
notice  that  Max  Miiller,  in  his  '  Chips,'  gives  his  authority  to  it.  Un- 
fortunately, his  admirable  volumes  did  not  reach  me  till  this  chapter 
was  in  type,  and  I  have  therefore  been  unable  to  make  use  of  or  refer 
to  them. 


THE  HILL  AND  I' OR  EST  TRIBES.  mi 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE    ABORIGINAL    HILL-MEN    OF    BEERBIIOOM. 

'  T  N  every  extensive  jungly  or  hilly  tract  through- 
out  the  vast  continent  of  India,  there  exist 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  human  beings  in  a  state 
not  materially  different  from  that  of  the  Germans 
as  described  by  Tacitus,'  ^  With  these  words  the 
investigator  of  the  Indian  aborigines  introduced 
what  he  intended  to  be  the  first  of  a  series  of 
volumes  on  the  Black  Races  of  Bengal.  That 
a  section  of  the  human  family,  numbering  not 
less  than  thirty  millions  of  souls,  should  have 
lived  for  a  century  under  British  rule,  and  that 
their  origin,  language,  and  manners  of  life  should 
be  still  unknown  to  the  civilised  world,  affords 
abundant  matter  for  reflection.  While  the  fair- 
skinned  race  which  usurped  the  plains  has  be- 
come the  favourite  child  of  modern  scholarship, 
the  dark-faced  primitive  heritors  of  the  soil  have 
continued  as  we  found  them,  uncared  for,  despised, 

'  The  Kocch,  Bodo,  and  Dhimal  Tribes,  by  B.  H.  Hodpson,  Esq., 
of  the  Bengal  Civil  Service,  p.  2,  preface.     8vo,  Calcutta  1847. 


142  I'lIE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

hitling  away  among  their  immemorial  mountains 
and  forests.  The  study  of  Aryan  speech  has  done 
more  in  half  a  century  to  explain  the  history  of  man, 
than  all  the  previous  efforts  of  fifty  generations  of 
scholars.  From  the  discovery  of  Sanskrit  a  new 
era  of  human  thought  dates.  Sanskrit  grammar 
forms  the  keystone  of  philology,  and  Sanskrit  ethics 
have  left  their  impress  deeply  graven  on  modern 
philosophy.  But  the  other  races — races  which  have 
a  history  more  ancient  and  perhaps  not  less  in- 
structive than  the  Aryans,  if  we  could  only  find 
it  out — have  been  wholly  overlooked.  The  few 
inquirers  who  at  an  early  period  interested  them- 
selves in  the  subject,  were  cut  off  or  otherwise 
interrupted  before  their  researches  went  far  enough 
to  attract,  or  indeed  to  merit,  the  attention  of 
European  scholars,  and  Government  has  too  gene- 
rally dealt  with  the  aborigines  of  Bengal  as  with 
tribes  incapable  of  improvement — as  a  race  from 
whom  the  best  that  can  be  hoped  is  that  it  will  keep 
quiet  till  it  dies  out. 

The  aborigines  in  Southern  India  have  received 
a  little  more  attention,  but  their  past  is  still  un- 
explained. In  Madras  and  Bombay  the  purely 
aboriginal  element  appears  in  such  strength  in  the 
vernaculars — forming  three-quarters  of  the  whole 
Telugu  vocabulary — that  it  was  impossible  wholly 
to  overlook  the  races  from  which  it  was  derived.^ 

^  Atsu-Telugu  or  purely  aboriginal  words  form  one-half  of  the 
whole  vocabulary  :  Tatsaman  and  Tadbhavan,  or  words  directly  or 
indirectly  derived  from  the  Sanskrit,  form  one  quarter  ;  Anyadesyam, 
or  words  borrowed  from  aboriginal  dialects  other  than  the  Telugu, 


A  NFAV  FIELD  OF  STUDY.  143 

Some  acquaintance  with  non-Aryan  philology  be- 
came a  political  necessity.  But  in  Bengal  the  San- 
skrit entirely  overpowered  the  aboriginal  element, 
and  any  researches  into  the  primitive  tribes  have 
been  prompted  by  disinterested  motives.  To  Mr. 
Hodgson  and  the  few  inquirers  who  have  followed 
at  a  distance  in  his  steps,  greater  honour  is  due  than 
the  actual  results  obtained  would  seem  to  justify.- 

In  the  hope  that  I  may  be  able  to  interest  both 
the  scholar  and  the  statesman  in  these  lapsed  races, 
I  purpose  in  the  following  chapter  to  set  forth  what 
I  have  been  able  to  learn  regarding  the  history, 
the  language,  the  manners,  and  the  capabilities  of 
the  mountaineers  of  Beerbhoom,  The  scholar  will 
find  that  their  lanofuaofe  and  traditions  throw  an 
important  light  on  an  unwritten  chapter  in  the 
history  of  our  race.  The  Indian  statesman  will 
discover  that  these  Children  of  the  Forest  are  not 
so  utterly  fallen  away  from  the  commonwealth  of 
nations  as  he  has  supposed,  that  they  are  prompted 
by  the  same  motives  of  self-interest,  amenable  to 
the  same  reclaiming  influences  as  other  men,  and 
that  upon  their  capacity  for  civilisation  the  future 
extension  of  English  enterprise  in  Bengal  in  a  large 
measure  depends. 

For  ordinary  purposes,  the  twofold  division  of 
the  Indian  races  into  Aryans  and  aborigines  is  suffi- 

form  one  quarter.  When  the  labours  of  Mr.  Ellis  of  the  Madras 
Civil  Service,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Caldwell,  and  Mr.  A.  D.  Campbell,  in 
Southern  India,  are  seconded  by  researches  among  the  aboriginal 
tribes  of  the  north,  scholars  will  have  sufficient  evidence  to  pronounce 
upon  the  existence  of  a  primitive  Tamulian  stock.     But  not  till  then. 


144  TJff'^  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BLINGAL. 

cient.  But  when  we  come  to  look  narrowly  into 
the  matter,  it  appears  that,  while  the  Aryans  embrace 
a  single  family  only,  under  the  term  aborigines  are 
included  at  least  several  races  differing  from  each 
other  as  widely  as  the  Japanese  differs  from  the 
Egyptian  or  from  the  Dane.  The  physiologist, 
judging  from  the  features  and  bodily  structure, 
pronounces  that  certain  of  the  Indian  aboriginal 
tribes  bear  a  strong  affinity  to  the  Malay  race  ;  that 
others  are  equally  closely  related  to  the  Chinese ; 
and  that  others,  again,  are  unconnected,  or  very 
distantly  connected,  with  either.  Philology  has  up 
to  this  time  given  forth  no  certain  sound  on  the 
subject ;  and,  indeed,  all  that  linguistic  research 
has  done,  is  to  involve  the  question  in  still  greater 
mystery,  by  revealing  a  multitude  of  languages 
apparently  devoid  of  affinity  to  each  other.  In  a 
single  thinly-peopled  tract,  one  inquirer  counted 
twenty-eight  distinct  dialects,  mutually  unintelligible 
to  the  different  tribes  who  use  them;^  and  the  whole 
number  of  aboriginal  tongues  throughout  India  is 
not  less  than  two  hundred.  Whether,  like  the 
hundred  and  thirty  languages  that  Pliny  says  were 
spoken  in  the  Colchian  market-place,  these  will 
ever  be  shown  to  be  long  separated  members  of 
the  same  family,  is  a  point  on  which  no  one  in  our 
present  state  of  knowledge  can  pronounce  ;  but  such 

3  In  the  district  between  Kamaun  and  Assam.  Among  the  Naga 
tribes  also,  living  in  a  small  district  near  Assam,  about  thirty  different 
languages  exist,  affording  a  striking  proof  of  the  tendency  of  unwritten 
speech  to  split  up  into  numerous  dialects.  An  intervening  hill,  a  ravine, 
or  a  river,  is  enough  to  divide  the  language  of  a  district. 


THE  ABORIGINAL  LANGUAGES.  145 

a  union  can  only  result  from  a  careful  scrutiny  of 
the  isolated  members. 

When  this  chapter  was  begun,  four  years  ago,  I 
had  intended  to  append  to  it  a  comparative  granmiar 
and  vocabulary  of  six  aboriginal  languages,  includ- 
ing that  of  the  highlanders  of  Beerbhoom,  as  a  con- 
tribution towards  a  more  exact  knowledcre  of  the 
non-Aryan  races  of  India.  But  in  the  course  of 
subsequent  researches  in  the  India  Office  Library, 
two  large  trunks  of  manuscripts,  the  result  of  Mr. 
B.  H.  Hodgson's  labours  during  thirty  years  among 
the  Himalayan  tribes,  passed  into  my  hands.  At 
first  it  was  proposed  to  incorporate  this  unpublished 
collection  with  the  present  chapter ;  but  I  found 
that,  to  do  Mr.  Hodgson's  discoveries  justice,  the 
entire  volume  would  barely  suffice.  It  has  there- 
fore been  determined  to  compile  a  distinct  work  on 
the  aborigines  of  Northern  India,  based  upon  Mr. 
Hodgson's  researches;  and  it  seems  unnecessary  to 
swell  this  book  with  vocabularies,  which  will  find  a 
more  suitable  place  among  the  eighty  non-Aryan 
languages  which  I  hope  to  bring  together  in  the 
proposed  volume. 

The  Santals  or  hill-tribes  on  the  west  of  Beer- 
bhoom belong  to  that  section  of  the  aborigines 
which  physically  resembles  neither  the  Chinese 
nor  the  Malay.  The  Santal  is  a  well-built  man, 
standing  about  five  feet  seven,  weifrhinof  eio^ht  stone, 
without  the  delicate  features  of  the  Aryan,  but  un- 
disfigured  by  the  oblique  eye  of  the  Chinese,  or  the 

heavy   physiognomy  of   the   Malay.       His   skull    is 
VOL.  I.  K 


I4C  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

round,  rather  than  broad  or  narrow  ;  his  face  is  also 
round,  rather  than  oblong  or  square  ;  the  lower  jaw 
is  not  heavy ;  the  nose  is  irregular ;  the  lips  are  a 
little  thicker  than  the  Aryan's,  but  not  thick  enough 
to  attract  remark ;  the  cheek-bone  is  higher  than 
that  of  the  Hindu,  but  not  higher  in  anything  like 
the  degree  in  which  the  Mongolian  is,  rather  as  the 
cheek-bone  of  a  Scotchman  is  higher  than  that  of 
an  Englishman.  He  is  about  the  same  height  as 
the  common  Hindu,  shorter  than  the  Brahman  of 
pure  Aryan  descent,  heavier  than  the  Hindu,  hardier 
than  the  Hindu,  more  squarely  built  than  the  Hindu, 
with  a  forehead  not  so  high,  but  rounder  and  broader; 
a  man  created  to  labour  rather  than  to  think,  better 
fitted  to  serve  the  manual  exigencies  of  the  present, 
than  to  speculate  on  the  future  or  to  venerate  the 
past. 

The  Santals.  inhabit  the  whole  western  frontier  of 
Lower  Bengal,  from  within  a  few  miles  of  the  sea  to 
the  hills  of  Bhagulpore.  Their  country  is  the  shape 
of  a  curved  strip,  about  four  hundred  miles  long  by 
a  hundred  broad,  giving  an  area  of  forty  thousand 
square  miles.  In  the  western  jungles  they  are  the 
sole  population  ;  in  a  large  tract  towards  the  north 
they  form  nineteen-twentieths  of  it ;  in  the  plains 
the  proportion  is  much  smaller,  and  indeed  the  race 
gradually  slides  into  the  low-caste  Hindus.  They 
certainly  number  a  million  and  a  half  and  probably 
approach  two  millions  of  human  beings,  claiming 
a  common  origin,  speaking  one  language,  following 
similar  customs,  worshipping  the   same  gods,   and 


SANTA L   TRADITIONS.  147 

forming  in   all  essentials   a  distinct   ethnical   entity 
among  the  aboriginal  races. 

The  present  generation  of  Santals  have  no  de- 
finite idea  of  where  their  forefathers  came  from.  It 
is  a  race  whose  subsoil  of  tradition  is  thin  and  poor. 
Written  documents  they  have  none.  Go  into  one 
village,  mark  what  appears  on  the  surface,  listen  to 
the  chants  of  the  young  men,  hear  the  few  legends 
which  the  elders  relate  at  eveninof  under  the  shade 
of  the  adjoining  Sal  Grove,  and  subsequent  investi- 
gations will  not  materially  change  first  impressions. 

The  earliest  fact  of  which  the  race  seems  to 
have  been  conscious,  was  the  vicinity  of  stupendous 
mountains.  Before  man  was,  the  Great  Mountain 
talked  to  himself  in  solemn  solitude.  The  Moun- 
tain communes  with  the  Creator  at  man's  birth  ; 
clothes  him,  and  teaches  him  to  produce  the  first 
comforts  of  life.  The  Mountain,  by  bringing 
together  the  first  pair  in  marriage,  stands  as  the 
fans  et  origo  of  the  race.  Their  legend  of  the 
creation  runs  thus.  In  the  old  time  that  was  before 
this  time,  the  Great  Mountain  stood  alone  among 
the  waters.  Then  the  Great  Mountain  saw  that 
birds  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters,  and  he 
said  within  himself,  Where  shall  we  put  these 
birds."*  let  us  put  them  on  a  water-lily  in  the 
midst  of  the  waters,  and  let  them  rest  there. 
Then  were  huge  prawns  created,  and  the  prawns 
raised  the  rocks  from  under  the  waters,  and  like- 
wise the  water-lily.  Thereafter  the  rocks  were 
covered   with   diverse   manner  of  creeping   things ; 


148  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

and  the  Great  Mountain  said,  Let  the  creeping 
things  cover  the  rocks  with  earth,  and  they  covered 
them.  And  when  the  rocks  were  covered,  the  Lord 
of  All  commanded  the  Great  Mountain  to  sow  grass  ; 
and  when  the  grass  grew  up,  the  first  man  and 
woman  arose  from  two  duck's  eggs  that  had  been 
laid  upon  the  water-lily.  Then  the  Lord  of  All 
asked  of  the  Great  Mountain,  What  are  these  ? 
And  the  Great  Mountain  answered,  They  are  man 
and  woman ;  since  they  are  born,  let  them  stay. 
After  that  the  Lord  of  All  told  the  Great  Moun- 
tain to  look  once  again,  and  behold  the  man  and 
woman  had  grown  up,  but  they  were  naked.  So 
the  Lord  of  All  commanded  the  Great  Mountain  to 
clothe  them,  and  the  Great  Mountain  gave  them 
cloth,  to  the  man  ten  cubits,  and  to  the  woman 
twelve  cubits  ;  and  the  man's  clothing  sufficed,  but 
the  woman's  sufficed  not. 

Then  the  man  and  woman  being-  faint,  the  Great 
Mountain  commanded  them  to  make  strong  drink. 
He  gave  them  a  handful  of  leaven,  saying,  Place  it 
in  a  pitcher  of  water,  and  after  four  days  come 
again.  So  they  put  it  in  a  pitcher,  and  after  four 
days  came  again,  and  behold  the  water  had  become 
the  strong  drink  of  the  Santals.  Then  the  Great 
Mountain  gave  them  leaves  wherewith  to  make 
cups,  but  commanded  them,  before  they  drank,  to 
pour  forth  an  offering  unto  him. 

Thereafter  the  Great  Mountain  said,  The  land  is, 
the  man  is,  and  the  woman  is  ;  but  what  if  the  man 
and  woman  should  die  out  of  the  land !      Let  us 


SANTAL  LEGEND  OF  THE  CREATION.       149 

make  them  merry  with  strong  drink,  and  let  children 
be  born.  So  the  Great  Mountain  made  them  merry 
with  strong  drink,  and  seven  children  were  born/ 

So  the  man  and  the  woman  increased  and  multi- 
plied, and  the  land  could  not  hold  all  the  children 
that  were  born.  In  this  time  they  dwelt  in  Hihiri 
Pipiri,  but  when  the  land  would  not  hold  them 
they  journeyed  to  Chae  Champa ;  and  when  Chae 
Champa  would  not  hold  them  they  journeyed  to 
Silda ;  and  when  Silda  would  not  hold  them  they 
journeyed  to  Sikar,  and  from  Sikar  they  journeyed 
to  Nagpur,  and  from  Nagpur  to  the  north,  even  to 
Sir. 

Such  is  the  story  of  the  creation  and  dispersion 
as  related  in  the  western  jungles  of  Beerbhoom  by 
men  who  know  not  a  word  of  Bengali,  and  who 
dread  the  approach  of  a  Hindu  towards  their  village 
more  than  the  night-attack  of  a  leopard  or  tiger. 
Legends  almost  word  for  word  the  same  are  told 
by  the  Santals  of  the  south  and  of  the  north  ;  and 
if  it  be  possible  for  ignorance,  hatred,  and  terror  of 
the  stranger  to  keep  the  legends  of  a  race  free  from 
foreign  elements,  then  these  represent  purely  abo- 
riginal traditions.  I  do  not  believe,  however,  that 
perfect  seclusiveness  is  possible  ;  and  after  a  minute 
research  into  such  scraps  of  history  as  exist,  and  a 
careful  examination  of  their  language,  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  they  have  unconsciously  grafted  San- 
skrit incidents  and  scenery  on  what  are  at  bottom 
distinct  aboriginal  legends. 

*   Modesty  compels  thi j  piitl  of  the  lcj;cnd  to  be  curtailed. 


150  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

I  give  in  an  appendix^  a  literal  translation  of  six 
legends,  as  delivered  to  the  Rev.  Mr,  Phillips  by 
the  Santals  of  Orissa,  two  hundred  miles  distant 
from  the  section  of  their  countrymen  among  whom 
the  foregoing  were  gathered,  and  separated  from 
them  by  jungles,  rivers,  and  the  absence  of  any 
means  of  written  communication. 

No  one  can  fail  to  be  struck  by  the  analogies 
which  these  traditions  bear  to  the  Mosaic  and  to 
the  Sanskrit  accounts  of  the  creation.  The  earth 
covered  with  water,  the  raising  up  of  the  land,  its 
preparation  for  mankind,  the  nakedness  of  our  first 
parents,  the  divine  provision  for  clothing  them, 
and  the  subsequent  dispersion,  are  points  in  com- 
mon ;  but  I  belive  that  in  the  Santal  Genesis,  as 
in  that  of  other  races  not  of  Aryan  or  Semitic 
descent,  the  tradition  of  the  creation  is  mixed  up 
with  one  of  the  deluge,  if  indeed  the  creation  with 
these  less  orifted  tribes  does  not  beein  with  the 
flood.  The  Aryans,  who  have  distinct  traditions 
relative  to  both  events,  speak  in  very  different  terms 
of  the  two.  Their  legend  of  the  creation  is  wrapt 
up  in  mystery  hardly  less  solemn  than  the  brief 
majestic  verses  of  Moses,  while  their  legend  of  the 
deluge  is  one  of  practical  details.  '  Then  there  was 
neither  entity  nor  nonentity,'  runs  the  Vedic  account 
of  the  creation  ;  '  there  was  no  atmosphere,  nor  any 
sky  beyond  it.  Death  was  not  then,  nor  immor- 
tality ;  there  was  no  distinction  of  day  or  night. 
The  One  breathed  calmly  with  nature  ;   there  was 

*  Appendix  G. 


RATHER  A  LEGEND  OF  THE  FLOOD.        151 

nothing  different  from  It  or  beyond  It.  Darkness 
there  was.'  On  the  other  hand,  the  Sanskrit  story 
of  the  deluge,  Hke  that  in  the  Pentateuch,  makes  no 
mystery  of  the  matter.  A  ship  is  built,  seeds  are 
taken  on  board,  the  ship  is  pulled  about  for  some 
time  by  a  fish,  and  at  last  gets  ashore  upon  a  peak 
of  the  Himalayas. 

The  Santal  legend  describes  rather  the  subsidence 
of  waters  than  a  creation,  and  the  striking  features 
of  such  a  subsidence  are  accurately  detailed.  The 
Great  Mountain  first  stood  forth  from  the  deep, 
while  marine  fowls  and  aquatic  plants  continued  to 
live  upon  the  surface  of  the  water.  As  the  flood 
went  down,  rocks  appeared,  with  shell-fish,  prawns, 
and  other  crustaceous  animals.  On  its  further  sub- 
sidence, it  would  leave  the  earth  covered  with 
worms  and  the  countless  creeping  things  with  which 
the  slime  of  a  retreating  tropical  river  teems.  Then 
would  spring  up  a  luxuriant  covering  of  grass,  and 
the  earth  would  be  ready  for  its  human  occupants. 
The  prominent  mention  both  in  the  Mosaic  and  the 
Santal  legends  of  the  use  of  strong  drink,  and  of  in- 
decencies committed  under  its  influence,  is  certainly 
a  curious  coincidence  ;  perhaps  it  is  nothing  more. 

Another  coincidence — I  do  not  venture  to  call 
it  an  analogy — is  to  be  found  in  the  number  of 
children  born  to  the  first  pair.  As  the  Santal 
legend  immediately  divides  the  human  species  into 
seven  families,  so  the  Sanskrit  tradition  assigns  the 
propagation  of  our  race  after  the  flood  to  seven 
Rishis. 


152  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

The  mountain  home  from  which  the  Santals 
issued,  and  to  which  their  earhest  traditions  point, 
was  unquestionably  among  the  Himalayas.  The 
hills,  or  rather  the  table-lands  of  Central  India, 
are  not  of  a  character  sufficiently  striking  to  have 
left  so  permanent  an  impression  on  the  Santal 
mind,  and  there  is  no  evidence  of  their  ever  hav- 
ing been  near  the  higher  Vindhya  ranges.  Nor 
is  it  possible  to  understand  how  they  could  have 
reached  the  Central  Table-land,  unless  from  the 
north.  With  the  Malay  type  and  with  the  Malay 
language  their  features  and  their  speech  have  no 
affinities  ;  of  the  sea  or  of  the  larger  marine  fishes 
they  have  no  traditions ;  and  we  can  believe  their 
legendary  mountain  home  to  have  been  in  the 
south  instead  of  in  the  north,  only  if  we  are  willing 
to  concede  that  they  are  a  distinct  race,  created 
among  the  hills  of  Central  India,  and  not  descended 
from  the  same  first  parents  as  the  rest  of  mankind. 

But  the  traditions  and  reliofious  beliefs  of  the 
Santals  are  stamped  with  the  influence  of  another 
natural  phenomenon  besides  the  Great  Mountain. 
A  mighty  river  always  affects  more  or  less  per- 
manently the  people  who  dwell  upon  its  banks,  and 
such  a  river  forms  the  second  fact  in  the  outward 
world  of  which  the  Santal  race  display  conscious- 
ness. In  the  country  w'hich  they  now  chiefly  in- 
habit, and  have  lived  in  for  ages,  mountain  streams 
abound ;  but  none  of  them  attains  the  dignity  of  a 
great  river.''      The  largest  of  them,  the   Damooda. 

*  This  paragraph  refers  to  the  Santals  adjoinin<^  Beerbhoom,  not 


PREHISTORIC  REMINISCENCES.  153 

is  fordable  even  in  a  carriage  during  many  months 
of  the  year.  While,  therefore,  the  aborigines  of 
the  north-east  frontier,  living  in  a  land  of  mighty 
waters,  have  a  crowded  Pantheon  of  river  deities  or 
demons,"  the  aborigines  of  the  Santal  country  have 
not  been  able  to  find  a  single  stream  worthy  of 
being  erected  into  a  national  god.  Nevertheless  a 
faint  remembrance  of  the  far-off  time  when  they 
dwelt  beside  great  rivers,  still  exerts  its  influence. 
The  only  stream  of  any  consequence  in  their  present 
country — the  Damooda — is  regarded  with  a  venera- 
tion altogether  disproportionate  to  its  size.  Thither 
the  superstitious  Santal  repairs  to  consult  the  pro- 
phets and  diviners,  and  once  a  year  the  tribes  make 
a  pilgrimage  to  its  banks,  in  commemoration  of 
their  forefathers.  The  ceremony  is  called  the  Puri- 
fying for  the  Dead ;  and  the  influence  anciently 
exerted  by  great  rivers  on  the  Santal  beliefs  has 
been  of  so  permanent  a  character,  that  to  this  day 
the  omission  to  visit,  at  least  once  a  year,  the  single 
river  they  possess,  is  visited  among  some  families  in 
the  Beerbhoom  highlands  by  loss  of  social  privileges. 
The  same  influence  makes  itself  apparent  in  the 
touching  and  beautiful  rite,  by  means  of  which  they 
unite  the  dead  with  the  fathers.  However  reniote 
the  jungle  in  which  the  Santal  may  die,  his  nearest 
kinsman  carries  a  little  relic  of  the  deceased  to  the 

to   those   of   Orissa   in   the  extreme   south,   or  of   Rajmahal   on   the 
northern  frontier  of  the  race. 

^  See  the  hst  of  deities  worshipped  by  the  Assamese  hill-mcn. 
f^iven  in  Mr.  Hodgson's  Essay  on  the  Kocch,  Rodo,  and  Dhimal 
'J'ribcs,  p.  166. 


154  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

river,  and  places  it  in  the  current,  to  be  conveyed  to 
the  far-off  eastern  land  from  which  his  ancestors 
came.  Instances  have  been  known  of  a  son  follow- 
ing up  the  traces  of  a  wild  beast  which  had  carried 
off  his  parent,  and  watching,  without  food  or  sleep, 
during  several  days  for  an  opportunity  to  kill  the 
animal,  and  secure  one  of  his  father's  bones  to  carry 
to  the  river. 

The  value  of  this  ceremony,  from  a  historical 
point  of  view,  is  as  little  affected  by  the  circum- 
stance that  the  present  generation  of  Santals  can 
give  no  account  of  its  origin,  as  its  beauty  is  im- 
paired by  the  fact  that  the  Damooda  never  reaches 
the  great  river  of  the  East,  by  which,  in  all  proba- 
bility, their  ancestors  travelled.  These  rites  point 
distinctly  to  the  influence  once  exerted  on  the  race 
by  the  presence  of  mighty  streams ;  and  the  waters 
of  the  Damooda,  laden  with  offerings  of  filial  piety, 
mingrle  at  last  in  the  common  ocean  with  the  waters 
of  the  great  eastern  river  which  in  bygone  times 
received  their  forefathers'  bones. 

I  have  enumerated  the  various  countries  through 
which  the  Santals  say  they  travelled  towards  their 
present  territory,  not  because  I  can  derive  much  in- 
formation from  them  myself,  but  in  the  hope  that 
other  inquirers  may,  by  identifying  them,  establish 
conclusively  the  Santal  line  of  march.  Where 
Hihiri  Pipiri  may  be,  or  where  Chae  Champa  and 
Silda  may  be,  I  know  not  for  certain ;  but  it  is 
worth  mentioning  that  Pipiri-am  means  in  Santali 
a  butterfly,  and  that  Hihiri  is  merely  a  reduplicative 


THE  SANTA L  LINE  OF  MARCH.  155 

form  of  it.  If  Ilihiri  Pipiri  signify  the  Butterfly 
Land,  it  would  be  in  the  temperate  climate  which 
the  Himalayas  afford.  Neither  Hihiri  nor  Pipiri 
occurs  in  Sanskrit,  Bengali,  Hindi,  or  Urdu.  The 
second  country,  Chae  Champa,  where  the  Santals 
are  said  to  have  first  become  numerous,  is  possibly 
the  Land  of  Flowering  Trees,  the  term  beinof  a 
reduplicative  plural  of  Champa,  a  flowering  tree. 
This  would  have  been  in  the  higher  valleys  of  the 
Brahmaputra.  With  Sikar,  the  fourth  on  the  list, 
we  touch  solid  ground.  It  lies  upon  the  Damooda, 
almost  within  the  ancient  district  of  Beerbhoom,  and 
now  forms  one  of  the  chief  places  of  pilgrimage  of 
the  race.  While  the  Santals  to  the  south  of  the 
Damooda  say  they  come  from  the  north,  those  to 
the  north  of  it  point  to  the  south  as  their  former 
country ;  so  that  it  may  be  assumed  that  they 
reached  the  valley  of  that  river  not  from  the  north 
or  the  south,  but  from  the  east  or  the  west.  As 
they  moved  westwards  from  Sikar  to  Nagpur,  within 
historic  times,  the  east  remains  as  the  direction  from 
which  they  came,  being  pushed  gradually  on  from 
the  open  country  to  the  mountains,  as  the  Hindu 
population  advanced.  That  this  was  their  general 
rt)ute,  an  examination  of  their  manners  and  habits 
of  life  will  place  beyond  doubt.  They  have  neither 
the  sullen  disposition  nor  the  unconquerable  laziness 
of  the  very  old  hill-tribes  of  Central  India;  they 
have  carried  with  them  from  the  plains  a  love  of 
order,  a  genial  humanity,  with  a  certain  degree  of 
civilisation  and   agricultural  habits,  which  hundreds. 


156  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

perhaps  thousands,  of  years  have  not  been  able  to 
efface.  Their  very  vices  are  the  vices  of  an  op- 
pressed and  a  driven-out  people  who  have  lapsed 
from  a  higher  state,  rather  than  those  of  savages 
who  have  never  known  better  things. 

The  language  of  the  Santals,  that  intangible 
record  on  which  a  nation's  past  is  graven  more 
deeply  than  on  brass  tablets  or  in  rock  inscriptions, 
is  as  rich  a  field  of  inquiry  as  their  traditions  are 
meagre  and  barren.  It  belongs  to  the  order  of 
speech  which,  starting  from  monosyllabic  roots, 
form  their  inflections  by  the  aid  of  pronominal 
particles.  It  is  therefore  distinct  from  the  Chinese 
types,  devoid  as  they  are  of  inflectional  structure, 
and  still  further  apart  from  the  Semitic  tongues, 
starting  from  characteristic  verbal  bases  consisting 
of  three  letters.®  As  its  roots  are  inflexible,  it  is 
equally  repudiated  by  that  great  family  of  languages 
based  upon  biliteral  flexible  radices,  to  which  our 
own  belongs,  and  of  which  Sanskrit  exhibits  the 
most  perfect  development.  Never  subjected  to 
the  conservative  influences  which  written  docu- 
ments exert,  and  indeed  devoid  of  any  written 
character  whatever,  it  has  come  down  to  the  present 
generation  shrivelled  and  disintegrated,  rather  the 
debris  of  an  ancient  language  than  that  ancient 
language  itself.  Nevertheless  it  still  survives  as  a 
breathing  linguistic  organism  connecting  the  present 
with  an    unfathomed  past,   and  furnishing  hints   of 

^  A.  W.  von  vSchlegel's  Observations  sur  la  lan.c;ue  et  littcratine 
Proven^alcs,  p.  14. 


SANTA L  SPEECH.  157 

grammatical  forms  infinitely  more  numerous  and 
complicated  than  were  guessed  of  by  Panini. 

In  the  Appendix"  will  be  found  an  outline  of  the 
Santali  grammar,  from  which  scholars  who  work  at 
leisure,  and  surrounded  by  the  appliances  of  philo- 
logical research,  may  perhaps  derive  wider  and 
sounder  conclusions  than  I  can.  The  following 
pages  bring  to  a  common  focus  the  results  which 
the  few  and  scattered  investio^ators  of  the  Santal 
race  have  arrived  at ;  and  even  if  some  of  my  deduc- 
tions should  be  proved  to  be  unsound,  the  facts  will 
remain  at  the  service  of  those  who  may  make  a 
better  use  of  them/" 

In  excavating  the  Santal  language,  the  first 
feature  that  attracts  notice  is,  that  although  it  pos- 
sesses no  letters  or  written  character,  the  Sanskrit 
alphabet  exactly  represents  all  its  sounds.  How- 
ever copious  an  alphabet  may  be,  it  never  precisely 
fits  a  language  of  a  different  stock  from  that  for 
which  it  was  made.  Thus  the  Perso-Arabic  alpha- 
bet, one  of  the  most  exhaustive  that  has  been  framed, 
possesses  no  equivalents  for  at  least  two  of  the 
Sanskrit  vowels,  for  two  of  the  Sanskrit  nasals,  and 
probably  for  the  Sanskrit  v  sound.  The  Sanskrit 
alphabet,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  equivalents  for 
the  five  z  sounds  in  the  Semitic  tongues,  and  is 
forced  to  the  barbarism  of  using  a  j  roughly  to  re- 
present them.     Nor  has  it  an  equivalent  for  the  hard 

®  Appendix  H. 

'"  Besides  MS.  contributions  placed  at  my  disposal,  I  have  made 
constant  use  of  the  Rev.  J.  Phillips'  Introduction  to  the  Santal  Lan- 
guage, Calcutta  1852,  with  MS.  additions  by  other  missionaries. 


158  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

Semitic  aspirate,  nor  for  the  second  k  sound,  nor  for 
ain  and  ghain.  Tradition  relates  how  the  Greek 
alphabet,  at  first  consisting  of  the  primitive  sixteen 
Semitic  characters,  had  to  borrow  four  other  signs 
to  represent  Greek  speech  ;  and  if  any  one  will  write 
a  line  of  Homer  with  only  the  original  sixteen  letters, 
and  then  try  to  read  it  out,  he  will  realize  the  diffi- 
culty of  representing  speech  belonging  to  one  of  the 
great  families,  by  an  alphabet  constructed  for  a  lan- 
guage belonging  to  another.  Nor  does  the  San- 
skrit alphabet  accurately  represent  the  utterances  of 
the  Indian  aborigines  in  general ;  indeed,  the  most 
carefully  studied,  and  perhaps  the  most  widely 
spoken  of  these  aboriginal  tongues — the  one  which 
has  been  taken  as  the  type  of  all  the  rest — contains 
articulations  that  cannot  be  conveyed  by  any  alpha- 
bet in  which  Sanskrit  is  written.  The  southern 
aborigines  have  not  only  sounds  unknown  to  Aryan 
speech,  but  they  also  want  other  sounds  which  the 
Aryan  alphabets  very  minutely  express." 

Now  we  know  that  the  primitive  Sanskrit  alpha- 
bet was  deficient  in  consonants,  and  required  several 
new  letters  to  represent  the  articulations  of  the  races 
whom  the  Aryans  found  settled  in  the  land.  From 
the  circumstance  that  the  Sanskrit  consonants,  as 
finally  developed,  precisely  fit  Santal  speech,  with- 
out either  deficiency  or  redundancy,  excepting  v,  it 
appears  likely  that  the  aboriginal  race  whom  the 
Aryan    immigrants    chiefly    dealt    with,    and    from 

'1  Note  by  Mr.  F.  W.  Ellis  to  the  preface  to  Campbell's  Telugu 
Grammar. 


FORMA  TION  OF  SPEE  CH.  1 5  9 

whom  they  supplemented  their  consonantal  sounds,'* 
were  either  the  ancestors  or  a  cognate  tribe  of  the 
ancestors  of  the  Santals.  The  fact  that  several 
Santal  words  are  to  be  found  in  very  old  Prakrit 
gives  additional  likelihood  to  this  conjecture. 

Language  is  resolvable  into  two  elements — 
pronouns  and  roots.  The  latter  represent  the 
material  framework,  the  former  the  organic  and 
formative  principle,  which  is  to  man's  speech  what 
the  vital  spark  is  to  his  body.  From  the  roots  or 
material  element  are  derived  verbs  and  nouns,  but 
verbs  and  nouns  in  a  motionless  state,  devoid  of 
relation,  and  divested  of  the  idea  of  position  in 
space  or  time.  Yet,  in  order  that  man  may  speak 
of  a  thing,  he  must  first  have  a  conception  of  it  as 
occupying  some  position,  either  in  space  or  in  time, 
either  near  to  himself  or  distant  from  him,  as  being 
of  the  present  or  of  the  past,  or,  in  the  formula  of 
the  philologers,  as  belonging  to  the  here  or  to  the 
tJicrc.  It  is  the  function  of  the  pronoun,  understand- 
ing that  term  in  its  scientific  sense,  to  bridge  over 
this  gulf  between  mind  and  matter,  and  to  form  out 
of  inert  nouns  and  verbs  the  locomotive  and  half- 
vital  organism  of  human  speech. 

The  STRUCTURE  of  language  means  the  method 
according  to  which  these  two  elements,  the  pronoun 
and  the  root,  combine,  the  changes  which  they 
undergo  in  the  process,  and  the  relation  which  they 
bear  to  each  other  when  united.  In  former  times 
grammarians  pronounced  languages  distinct  if  they 

^*  August  Schleicher,  Coiiipendium,  sec.  122.     Weimar,  1866. 


i6o  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

employed  different  sets  of  pronouns  and  roots. 
Modern  philology  has  shown  that  such  differences 
are  often  apparent  rather  than  real,  and  that,  even 
when  real,  the  languages  may  nevertheless  be  con- 
nected. Similarity  or  dissimilarity  in  words  affords 
a  much  less  conclusive  proof,  one  way  or  the  other, 
than  resemblanceor  want  of  resemblance  in  structure. 
Structure,  indeed,  is  admitted  to  furnish  the  only 
perfectly  reliable  test  by  which  to  compare  one 
tongue  with  another,  and  to  settle  its  proper  place 
in  the  great  commonwealth  of  languages.  But 
although  this  is  admitted,  structure  has  not  yet 
been  heartily  accepted  as  the  basis  of  classification. 
At  present  languages  are  arranged  in  four  divisions : 
\st,  The  monosyllabic  uninflected  type,  or  Chinese  ; 
2d,  The  monosyllabic  (biliteral)  inflected  type,  or 
Indo-European  ;  3</,  The  triliteral  inflected  type,  or 
Semitic ;  4M,  The  residue,  such  as  the  Turanian  and 
African,  with  the  dialects  of  America  and  Australia. 
In  this  arrangement  no  single  principle  of  classifica- 
tion is  adhered  to.  It  separates  the  first  two  classes 
on  account  of  difference  in  structure, — the  one  beine 
inflected,  the  other  uninflected.  It  separates  the 
second  from  the  third  on  account  of  difference  in 
their  roots, — the  second  being  based  on  biliteral, 
the  third  on  triliteral  radices.  According  to  the 
first  principle,  that  of  structure,  the  fourth  class 
might  be  included  as  imperfect  forms  of  the  second 
or  third  ;  for  languages  of  the  fourth  class  exhibit 
a  kind  of  inflection.  According  to  the  second 
principle,  that  which  refers  to  the  roots,  the  fourth 


THE  NE  n '  LIGHTS.  1 6 1 

class  miglit  be  placed  under  the  first  or  second  ;  for 
it  consists  of  dialects  based  on  biliteral  roots. 

The  new  lights  have  come  from  Germany. 
Adopting  structure  as  the  basis  of  classification, 
and  adhering  to  it  throughout,  August  Schleicher 
has  sketched  a  systematic  arrangement  of  languages 
which  must  sooner  or  later  supplant  the  unscientific 
one  described  above.^''  According  to  his  plan, 
speech  belongs  to  one  or  other  of  the  three  following 
types  :  \st.  The  isolating  languages,  consisting  of 
mere  roots,  incapable  of  forming  compounds,  and 
not  susceptible  of  inflectional  change.  The  Chinese, 
Anamitic,  Siamese,  and  Burmese  exemplify  this 
class.  2dy  Compounding  languages,  consisting,  like 
the  first,  of  roots  which  undergo  no  change,  but 
which,  unlike  the  first,  are  capable  of  forming  com- 
pounds, and  susceptible  of  inflection  by  means  of 
the  addition,  insertion,  or  prefixing  of  '  sounds  that 
imply  relation.'  To  this  family  belong  the  Finnic, 
Tataric,  Uekhanic,  and  Bask,  the  speech  of  the 
aborigines  of  America,  the  South  African  or  Bantu 
dialects,  and,  in  general,  the  greater  number  of 
languages.  3^/,  Inflecting  languages,  consisting  of 
roots  that  undergo  change  in  inflection,  and  which 
are  also  susceptible  of  inflection  by  means  of  prefixes 
or  suffixes.  The  Semitic  and  the  Indo-European 
form  two  widely  separated  families  of  this  class.'* 

'^  Compendium  dcr  Vcrgloichcndcn  Grammalik  der  Indopcr- 
manischen  Sprachcn,  von  August  Schleicher.     8vo.     Weimar,  1866. 

'■'  Id.  p.  3.  Schleicher  represents  the  first,  or  simjilc-root  class, 
by  R ;  the  second,  or  root  and  suffix  class,  by  Rs^ ,  the  union  of  the 
Rs  indicating  that  the  root  and  suffix  form  one  word,  and  the  '  that 

VOL.   I.  L 


i62  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

I  purpose  to  examine,  as  briefly  as  possible, 
according  to  this  new  method,  the  structure  of 
Santali,  and  to  ascertain  its  place  in  the  great 
community  of  languages.  Such  an  inquiry,  how- 
ever essential  to  a  thorough  understanding  of  the 
rural  population  of  Bengal,  will  involve  technicali- 
ties that  may  prove  distasteful  to  some  readers. 
Those,  therefore,  for  whom  a  philological  exctirsus 
possesses  little  interest,  can  pass  on  to  page  179, 
where  they  will  find  its  main  results  concisely  set 
forth. 

That  Santali  does  not  belong  to  Schleicher's 
first  class — the  Isolating  languages — a  single  ex- 
ample is  sufficient  to  prove.  The  word  for  tiger  is 
kul ;  and  if  a  Santal  wishes  to  denote  the  dual  of 
this  noun,  he  does  not  say  'two -tiger'  or  'tiger- 
two,'  using  distinct  words  as  a  Chinaman  would,  but 
compounds  the  root  kul  with  a  dual  suffix  kin,  and 
makes  one  word  of  it;  thus,  ktilkin.  In  the  same 
way  he  expresses  the  plural,  not  by  two  words, 
'  tiger-many,'  as  the  Isolating  languages  do,  but 
by  compounding  the  root  with  the  plural  sufiix  ko ; 
thus,  kulko.  The  ki7i  and  the  ko  are  not  mere 
additions.  They  are  to  a  certain  extent  incorpo- 
rated with  the  root,  and  the  compounds  thus 
formed  become  bases  for  the  declension  of  the 
dual   and   plural  :    thus,   genitive   dual,  kulkin-rijiiy 

the  suffix  is  susceptible  of  change  in  the  process  of  combination  ;  the 
third  is  represented  by  /i  ^  j',  the  x  above  the  R  and  the  j  expressing 
that  both  root  and  sufifix  are  susceptible  of  change  during  the  pro- 
cess of  inflection.  There  is  some  little  confusion  on  this  point  in 
Schleicher's  text  (p.  3),  but  it  is  cleared  up  in  the  Addenda. 


THE  SANTA  LI  INFLECTIONS.  163 

of  two  tigers  ;  dative  plural,  kulko-then,  to  or  near 
to  several  tigers. 

Santali,  therefore,  must  belong  either  to  the 
second  or  third  of  Schleicher's  classes ;  and  to  find 
which  of  the  two  it  falls  under,  it  is  necessary  to 
ascertain  whether,  in  compounding  its  cases  and 
tenses,  the  root  undergoes  any  change.  To  ensure 
perfect  accuracy  at  this  stage,  every  part  of  speech 
ought  to  be  examined,  and  the  Santal  roots  should 
be  traced  through  the  various  cognate  languages. 
Such  a  review  would  occupy  many  pages  ;  but  a  few 
examples  will  suffice  to  illustrate  how  it  ought  to 
be  gone  about,  and  to  indicate  the  process  by  which 
I  have  arrived  at  my  conclusion  on  the  subject. 
First,  of  the  Santal  nouns  :  the  root  never  under- 
goes change  in  its  internal  structure,  nor  does  it 
even  admit  of  elisions  or  phonetic  changes  of  its 
terminal  letter.  Thus,  not  only  do  nouns  ending  in 
a  consonant — like  hcrel,  '  man  ' — continue  the  same 
in  all  the  oblique  cases  of  the  singular,  dual,  and 
plural ;  but  Santali  is  so  jealous  of  any  change  in  the 
root,  that  it  does  not  permit  the  conjunction  of  ter- 
minal vowels  in  declension  with  suffixes  beginning 
with  a  vowel.  Thus,  bade,  '  the  banyan  tree,'  com- 
pounded with  iait\  the  suffix  of  the  instrumental 
case,  does  not  undergo  any  alteration,  such  as 
baday-iatCy  but  remains  bade-iatc ;  nor  does  kada, 
a  '  buffalo,'  with  the  same  suffix,  exhibit  the  Guna 
change,  kadcate  or  kadayate,  but  continues  kada- 
iate.  In  the  same  way  with  the  verbs  :  the  root 
taken,   '  remain,'   forms    its    numbers,   persons,    and 


1 64  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

tenses  not  by  alteration  in  its  own  structure,  but 
by  the  addition  of  suffixes.  Thus,  future,  tahen- 
at\  'he  will  remain;'  tahe7i-akm,  'they  two  will 
remain ;'  tahen-akoy  '  they  will  remain  '  (plural). 
Imperfect  tense,  tahen-eii-a'z,  '  he  remained  ;'  tahen- 
en-akin,  '  they  two  remained  ;'  tahen-en-ako,  '  they 
remained.'  Pluperfect  tense,  taken- len-ai,  '  he  had 
remained;'  dual,  tuhen-len-akin ;  plural,  taJien-len- 
ako.  Subjunctive  mood,  takcn-cko-e,  '  he  may  re- 
main;'  potential,  taken-kok-ai,  'he  might  remain;' 
imperative,  taken-inai ;  infinitive,  take7t-te,  or  among 
the  northern  Santals  taken.  Participles  :  taken-kate, 
'remaining;'  taken  -  en  -  kkan,  'having  remained,' 
Gerunds  :  taken-ente^  taken-lente^  and  taken-akantc, 
'  by  remaining.' 

Occasionally,  but  rarely,  the  verbs  exhibit  pho- 
netic changes  of  terminal  vowels,  and  in  a  single 
instance  of  a  terminal  nasal. 

The  pronouns  are  more  complicated,  but  the 
changes  they  exhibit  in  the  roots  arise  from  em- 
ploying different  bases  in  the  dual  and  plural. 
These  changes  are  principally  confined  to  the  first 
persort  Thus:  i7ig,  'I';  alint  or  alam,  'we  two;' 
ale  or  aban}^  'we'  (plural).  A77i,  'thou;'  dual, 
abeti  ;  plural,  ape.  Ojia,  '  it  ; '  dual,  oiiakin  ; 
plural,  onako  or  07iko. 

Santali,  therefore,  does  not  belong  to  the  truly 
Inflecting  Languages,  which  change  their  roots  to 
form  some  of  their  oblique  cases  and  moods,  but  to 

^•'^  The  Rev.  J,  Phillips  ;  but  cf.  the  dual  and  plural  of  the  Sanskrit 
asmad. 


ITS  PLACE  AMONG  LANGUAGES.  165 

Schleicher's  second  class — the  Compounding  Lan- 
guages. This  family  occupies,  so  far  as  its  structure 
is  concerned,  an  intermediate  position  between  the 
other  two.  The  simplest  form  of  speech  is  the 
Isolating,  which  modifies  its  roots  not  by  forming 
compound  cases  or  inflections,  but  simply  by  add- 
ing other  roots.  It  is  represented  by  R-\-r-\-r,  etc. 
The  next  class  has  a  certain  agglutinative  power, 
by  which  it  combines  the  simple  roots  with  other 
roots  signifying  relation,  and  which  are  generally 
termed  pronouns  or  pronominal  particles.  If  we 
consider  these  pronominals  as  debased  or  disinte- 
grated roots,  and  represent  them  by  the  initial  letter 
of  that  word,  the  formula  of  the  second  class  would 
be  R  r,  the  union  of  the  large  and  small  r  indicat- 
ing that  the  two  roots,  the  base  and  the  inflection, 
become  a  compound  word.  Sometimes  the  inflec- 
tional root  undergoes  change ;  and  this  fact  may  be 
represented  by  placing  x  above  the  second  r,  so 
that  Schleicher's  second  class  may  be  represented 
either  ^s  Rr  or  Rr"".  In  his  third  class,  the  roots 
— i.e.  the  base  and  the  pronominal — are  still  more 
closely  united,  and  both  may  undergo  change ;  the 
formula  therefore  is  R"" r"". 

So  far,  therefore,  as  structure  is  concerned,  no 
break  or  chasm  can  be  found  between  the  multiform 
varieties  of  human  speech.  They  rise  one  above 
the  other  by  easy  gradations,  each  class  exhibiting 
a  higher  degree  of  activity  than  the  one  below  it. 
The  Isolating  class  cannot  form  compounds,  and 
express   themselves  by  an   endless   string   of  inco- 


i66  'JJIIi  ANNALS  01'  RURAL  BENGAL. 

heslve  roots;   xXxwi),  R-\  r  ad  infinitiuji.     The  Com- 
pounding class  have  a  certain  agglutinative  power  by 
which  the  pronominals,  or  roots  expressing  relation, 
stick  to  the   main  root  of  the  word,  but  the  main 
root  undergoes  no  change;  thus,  Rr  or  Rr'.     In 
the   Inflecting  class,  the  cohesive   powers  are   still 
stronger,   the   roots   expressing   relation   are   firmly 
cemented  with  the  main  root  of  the  word,  and  the 
main  root  has  a  self-inflecting  power  of  expressing 
moods  and  cases   by  changes  within   itself;    thus, 
R^  r''.     The  three  classes  represent  different  stages 
of  formative    activity ;  and,   without    laying    undue 
stress  on  the  comparison,  it  is  curious  to  notice  the 
fact  that  each  of  the  great  families  of  the  human 
race  has  exhibited  more  or  less  political  and  social 
activity  in  proportion  to  the  formative  powers  of  the 
language  which  it  speaks.     The  Burmese,  Chinese, 
and  Anamitic  nations  disclose  a  tendency  to  political 
isolation,  a:nd  an  absence  of  ethnic  vitality  singularly 
analogous  to   their   monosyllabic   isolating   speech. 
The  class  above  them,  the  Tataric  tribes,  who  from 
time    to    time    have   rolled    down    in    masses   upon 
Europe  and  Southern  Asia,  developed  a  more  active 
genius,  with  a  larger  capacity  for  organized  enter- 
prise, just  as  their  language  developed  the  formative 
principle    in    a   greater    degree    than    the    Chinese. 
The    third    class,  the    Aryan   and    Semitic   stocks, 
exhibit  the  hicrhest  form  both  of  social  and  lineuistic 
activity,  rearing  for  themselves  orderly  empires  alike 
in  the   physical   and    the  metaphysical  worlds,  and 
displaying  the  same  strong  vitality  in  their  political 


THE  PHILOLOGICAL  STRATA.  167 

history  and  practical  life  as  in  their  speech.  It 
would  be  easy  to  push  the  comparison  further,  and 
to  show,  for  example  among  the  Compounding  class 
of  languages,  that  the  nations  which  have  played 
the  most  active  part  in  the  world  have  also  evolved 
the  richest  grammatical  forms.  The  Tungusic 
family  have  never  exhibited  vitality  either  in  their 
political  movements  or  in  their  speech  ;  the  Mon- 
golic  are  a  stage  higher  in  both  ;  while  the  Turkic 
and  Finnic  branches  stand  at  the  head  of  Turanian 
mankind,  whether  we  judge  of  them  by  their  lan- 
guages, or  by  the  creative  energy  to  which  Europe 
owes  the  Ottoman  empire  and  the  Kudic  Kalc- 
wala. 

In  India,  all  the  three  classes  of  languages  meet 
as  upon  a  common  camping-ground.  Bengal,  with 
its  dependencies,  forms  a  vast  basin  into  which  every 
variety  of  speech  has  been  flowing  since  prehistoric 
times.  There  the  whole  philological  series  will  be 
found,  each  stratum  lying  above  its  predecessor . 
from  the  Isolating  languages,  that  hard  primary 
formation,  through  the  secondary  layers  of  the 
Compounding  class,  up  to  the  most  recent  deposits 
of  Inflecting  speech,  the  alluvial  Bengali  and  Hindi. 
Thus  : 

{Burmese  :  ""'  Thinese,  spoken  by  settlers  in  the 
large  towns  ;  the  dialects  of  some  of  the 
tribes  on  the  eastern  and  south  -  eastern 
frontier  of  Bengal. 


'"  August  Schleicher,  Compendium,  p.  3,  2d  cd. 


1 68  Tim  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

„  „  /The   Himalayan  dialects  :^^    Santali,  Kol,   and 

Second  Class  :   I  r  ,       ,  •      ,     ,      , 


so   far  as    has   been    ascertained,  the   lan- 
guages of  the  hill-tribes  in  general  through- 
\  out  Bengal  and  .Southern  India. 


RrzsiA  Rr^  Lan- 


^ Aryan  Branch:  Sanskrit;   Hindusthani ;  Ben- 
gal;   Hindi,   etc.      Semitic    Branch:    the 
Arabic  of  the  Mussulman  ministers  of  re- 
Third  Class:     )  ligion,  etc.     Semi-Aryan :   the  half-Arabic 

R-^r-'^  Languages.    |  Persian  which  until  recently  was  the  official 

language,  and  still  forms  the  vernacular  of 
the  upper  classes  of  the  Mussulinan  popu- 
lation. 

The  study  of  Sanskrit  speech  in  Northern  India 
has  brought  to  light  the  affinities  of  the  long  separated 
Aryan  members  of  the  Inflecting  class  of  languages, 
and  proved  the  common  parentage  of  two-thirds  of 
civilised  mankind.  But  this  forms  only  a  single 
family  of  the  world's  inhabitants.  The  study  of  the 
aboriginal  dialects  of  Bengal  is  destined,  I  believe, 
to  do  a  similar  work  for  the  vast  ethnical  residue ; 
to  construct  a  well-connected  series  out  of  scattered 
fragments,  and  possibly  at  some  distant  date  to 
furnish  the  connecting-  links  between  the  three  sfreat 
orders  of  human  speech.  The  materials  which 
Turanian  scholars  in  Europe,  such  as  Klaproth, 
A.  Remusat,  and  Castren,  had  to  collect  by 
laborious  research  or  perilous  travel,  lie  at  the  very 
door  of  the  Indian  missionary  or  magistrate,  and 
official  machinery  might  be  easily  and  inexpensively 
set  in  motion  for  making  a  clean  sweep  of  the 
whole  non- Aryan  languages  of  Bengal. 

''  The  ranges  to  the  east  of  the  higher  valley  of  the  Brahmaputra 
appear  to  form  a  linguistic  watershed.  Assam,  a  district  of  Lower 
Bengal,  is  an  ethnical  as  well  as  a  political  frontier. 


THEIR  CONFLUENCE  IN  BENGAL.  169 

Two  things  have  to  be  done — to  collect  the  voca- 
bulary, and  to  compile  the  grammar  of  each  group 
of  dialects.  Until  a  comprehensive  comparative 
dictionary  be  drawn  up,  it  is  impossible  to  pronounce 
on  the  phonetic  changes  the  letters  are  subject  to 
in  the  Compounding  class  of  languages,  and  hence 
also  impossible  to  recognise  with  certainty  the  same 
root  under  the  diverse  costumes  in  which  it  may 
appear  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  This  work 
has  been  already  accomplished  for  the  Aryan  lan- 
guages, and  scholars  can  now  pronounce  with  toler- 
able certainty  what  alterations  each  letter  undergoes 
in  any  specified  variety  of  inflecting  speech.^* 

For  the  compilation  of  aboriginal  grammars  and 
their  classification,  Schleicher's  method  affords  valu- 
able hints.  His  business  is  exclusively  with  the 
Inflecting  class  ;  but  he  states  that  the  second  class, 
the  Compounding  languages,  to  which  the  aboriginal 
dialects  of  India  belong,  are  formed  by  the  union 
of  the  root  with  prefixes,  insertions,  aud  suffixes. 
Leaving  out  the  middle  variety  for  the  sake  of 
clearer  illustration,  we  obtain  four  simple  and  four 
complex  orders  from  the  other  two.  Thus,  (i)  the 
root  with  a  suffixed  pronominal  root  unchanged, 
R  r,  (2)  or  with  the  pronominal  changed,  R  r '';  (3) 
the  root  with  a  prefixed  pronominal  root  unchanged, 
r R,  (4)  or  with  the  pronominal  changed,  r' 7?. 
The  possible   Compound   varieties  are  formed    by 

'*  Grundziige  dcr  Griechischen  Etymologic,  von  Gcorg  Curtius. 
pp.  120,  121,  2d  ed.,  Leipzig  1866;  or  Schleicher's  better  arranged 
table  of  consonant-changes.  Compendium,  p.  340,  2d  ed.,  Wcim.ir 
1866. 


I70  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

attaching  both  a  prefix  and  a  suffix  to  the  root ; 
thus,  (5)  rRr,  (6)  r^'Rr,  (7)  rRr"",  (8)  r' R  r\ 
Here,  therefore,  we  have  a  scientific  method  of 
arrangement,  beginning  with  a  class  almost  as  de- 
void of  life  as  the  Isolating  languages,  and  ending 
with  one  which  would  exhibit  a  formative  activity 
hardly  exceeded  by  the  Inflecting.  If  the  scattered 
investigators  of  the  aboriginal  races  of  India  would 
agree  to  accept  this  or  any  other  uniform  method, 
and  thus  bring  their  results  to  a  common  focus,  the 
chief  obstacle  in  the  way  of  non-Aryan  philology 
would  be  got  rid  of.  The  combination  of  the  sym- 
bolic letters  may  be  made  to  indicate  the  whole 
number  of  possible  species.  All  that  the  Indian 
students  have  to  do  is  to  arrange  each  language  in 
its  proper  class,  leaving  the  hypothetical  existence 
of  the  other  species,  and  all  doubtful  topics  of 
speculation,  to  European  scholars. 

Although  San  tali  is  proved  from  its  structure  to 
belong  to  the  Compounding  class  of  languages,  and 
to  the  second  or  Rr''  species  of  that  class,  it  never- 
theless exhibits  curious  analocries  to  langfuaees  of 
the  Inflecting  order,  and  in  particular  to  Sanskrit. 
Many  of  these  analogies  may  be  explained  away  by 
the  contact  of  the  Sanskrit-speaking  population,  but 
all  cannot.  Three  of  the  Santali  pronouns  and  three 
sets  of  nouns  will  suffice  to  illustrate  this  : — 

There  is  a  curious  particle,  chit,  in  Sanskrit,  which 
never  stands  by  itself  as  a  personal  pronoun,  but  is 
used  to  impart  indefiniteness  to  the  relative.  Thus, 
kas,  who,  with  the  particle  chit  added  to  it,  becomes 


AR  YAN  ROOTS  IN  SAN2ALI.  1 7 1 

l-as-chif,  some  one.  The  same  particle  supplies  the 
indefinite  conjunction  cket,  if.  But  this  particle,  which 
in  the  Sanskrit  tongue  has  almost  dropped  out  of 
the  rank  of  independent  pronominals,  and  clings  as 
an  affix  to  a  stronger  root,  stands  forth  in  Santali  as 
the  pronoun  of  indefiniteness,  resting  on  its  own 
strength,  and  the  parent  of  a  numerous  family  of 
words.  Thus  Santali,  chct,  what ;  chet-hong,  any- 
thing ;  chct-cho,  perhaps,  who  knows ;  chet-leko,  like 
what,  etc. 

The  Santali  adjective  jo-to,  all,  is  certainly  as 
unlike  the  corresponding  Sanskrit  word  sarva  as 
can  be.  But  jo-to  is  contracted,  according  to  the 
ordinary  rule,  iroxn  ja-tcfa  ;  and  the  naked  root  thus 
obtained,  ja  forms  the  basis  of  a  number  of  Santali 
compounds  signifying  number,  quantity,  or  continued 
duration.  Thus  ja-age  and  ja-jag,  a  great  number 
of  times,  for  ever ;  ja-ii/iilo,  always  ;  ja-arate,  to 
bring  together  a  large  quantity,  to  collect ;  the 
adjective  jak,  numerous,  populous,  which  has  been 
adopted  without  change  into  low  Bengali.  It 
happens  that  a  single  adverb  survives  in  Sanskrit 
which  suffices  to  preserve  this  root  in  a  form  not 
liable  to  be  mistaken.  The  Sanskrit  ja-tu,  ever, 
sometimes,  with  its  negative  na  ja-tii,  never,  at  no 
time,  forms  almost  the  sole  undisguised  representa- 
tive among  the  Indo-Aryan  pronominals  of  a  strong 
and  fecund  root  in  that  primitive  language  from 
which  the  whole  Indo-Germanic  family  in  common 
with  the  Santali  appears  to  have  sprung. 

One   of  the   Santali   demonstrative  pronouns  is 


172  711 E  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

na-i^^  this,  which  appears  in  a  variety  of  compounds, 
such  as  na-ka}^i,  to  this,  until,  now  ;  na-te,  this  way, 
hither  ;  na-7ile,  here,  etc.  One  of  its  derivatives  is 
iia-se,  which  never  stands  alone,  but  alwa)-s  as  a  re- 
duplicative plural,  na-se  7id-se,  some.  Compare  this 
with  the  Sanskrit  indeclinable  particle,  na-na,  various. 
The  Santali  third  person  pronouns  furnish  what 
some  may  be  inclined  to  consider  a  verification  of 
one  of  Dr.  Donaldson's  conjectures.  Thirty  years 
ago  this  most  ingenious  of  philologers  enumerated 
four  separate  particles  for  the  third  person  pronoun, 
ia,  na,  ntc,  and  ni,  only  two  of  which  could  be  dis- 
tinctly identified  in  the  languages  he  had  examined. 
In  Santali  the  whole  four  are  found  side  by  side, 
bare  of  accidental  wrappings,  and  in  the  very  forms 
that  Donaldson  described.  Thus,  ta-i,  his  ;  na-i,^^ 
this  person  ;  iiu-a  and  ni-a,  this  thing.  This  may 
be  only  a  coincidence,  but  it  is,  at  any  rate,  a  very 
curious  one. 

Passing  to  the  nouns,  the  Santali  glossary  differs 
from  the  Sanskrit  in  a  far  greater  degree  than  the 
Greek  and  English  do,  and  perhaps  in  the  same 
degree  that  the  Arabic  does.  In  a  number  of  roots 
expressing  very  simple  ideas,  however,  a  striking 
resemblance  appears.  Thus,  to  take  the  divisions 
of  time,  the  most  obvious  of  which  is  the  separation 
of  day  from  night.  Day  is  the  one  universal  pheno- 
menon in  all  aijes  and  in  all  countries  ;  and  the  same 
root   has  served  the  Sanskrit  conquerors  of  India, 

>■'  Properly  pronounced  with  an  aspirate  after  the  nj  thus,  ua- 
liai.     Na-hari  =  ua-ahan. 


AR  \  'AN  ROOTS  IN  SANTA  LI.  1 7  3 

the  Roman  conquerors  of  Europe,  and  the  Saxon 
reclaimers  of  the  New  World,  to  express  it.  This 
root,  div,  means  primarily  'light'  or  'brightness;' 
but  the  Sanskrit  likewise  exhibits  the  remains  of  what 
must  have  been  either  an  older  form  of  this  root,  or 
more  likely  a  distinct  root,  di7i,  '  day.'  Of  the  first 
root,  div,  which  has  been  so  universally  adopted  by 
Indo-Germanic  speech,  not  a  vestige  can  be  fouiid 
in  Santali ;  but  the  second,  din,  which  has,  compara- 
tively speaking,  fallen  out  of  use  among  the  great 
brotherhood  of  languages,  is  distinctly  preserved 
in  Sanskrit  and  Santali.  In  both  these  toneues, 
however,  it  shows  si"-ns  of  old  ao^e  and  weakness, 
and  leans  on  stronger  words  for  support.  Its  true 
sphere  is  in  composition,  where  it  rivals  the  other 
root  in  Sanskrit,  and  overpowers  all  competitors  in 
Santali.  Thus  Sanskrit  root,  din,  a  day  ;  Santali, 
din-kalom,  last  year;  din-talaute,  to  spend  time,  to 
provide  for  the  future ;  din-Jiiloh,  daily,  continuall)-. 
It  is  questionable  whether  di7i,  a  day,  ever  stands 
by  itself  in  pure  Santali ;  but  the  above  compounds 
are  inherent  and  genuine  parts  of  the  aboriginal 
vernacular.  There  are  several  words  for  '  day '  in 
Santali,  a  common  one  being  maha. 

Santali,  being  barren  of  abstract  terms,  has  no 
word  for  'time;'  but  it  forms  a  number  of  com- 
pounds, expressing  periods  of  time,  from  a  root 
kal:  thus,  kdl-oin,  next  year  ;  din-kd/-o?fi,  last  year ; 
Jial-kdlom,  two  years  ago ;  viahang-kaloni,  three 
years  ago.  Now,  curiously  enough,  kCil-a  is  the 
Sanskrit  word  for  '  time,'  from  the  root  kUl. 


174  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

To  take  another  instance  :  the  members  of 
the  body  are  common  to  all  men,  and  the  dif- 
ferent branches  of  a  race  generally  express  them 
by  names  formed  from  the  same  roots.  The 
word  for  head  comes  in  every  language  to  have 
a  secondary  sense,  expressing  pre-eminence,  or  the 
top  of  anything.  Thus,  Sanskrit  root,  sir,  head, 
the  summit  of  a  tree,  the  van  of  an  army,  etc. 
The  root  sir  in  Santali  never  stands  alone,  but 
it  appears  as  the  basis  of  a  numerous  group  of 
words:  thus,  sir-oin,  the  neck,  i.e.  under  the 
head,  oni  or  um  being  the  Santali  pronominal  of 
position  ;  sir-sir-aute,  to  quiver,  to  shake  the  head 
with  rage ;  sir-arite,  to  persist,  like  our  English 
idiom  to  be  headstrong ;  sirah-barah,  excellent, 
prime,  especially  applied  to  meat ;  sir-hite,  to  thatch 
the  top  of  a  house.  The  Sanskrit  root  for  the 
throat  is  gal,  whence  words  for  melting,  eating,  and 
speaking  are  derived.  Santali  forms  its  words  for 
the  throat  and  for  eating  from  a  different  source,  but 
it  employs  this  same  root  gal  in  composition  to  ex- 
press speaking  and  melting  :  thus,  gal-maraiite,  to 
converse,  to  gossip;  galani-galam,  indistinct,  gut- 
tural ;  gal-aute,  to  slacken,  as  lime  under  the  action 
of  water. 

Next  to  the  neck  is  the  arm  ;  and  the  Indo- 
Germanic  word  for  this  limb,  Jiasta,  or  its  contracted 
form  hat,  although  unknown  in  Santali  as  an  in- 
dependent vocable,  is  found  in  composition.  Thus, 
hdt-lah,  the  arm-pit;  hat -ante,  to  snatch  away; 
hdt-oate,  to  feel  about  with  the  hands  in  the  dark, 


AR  YAN  ROOTS  /JV  SANTA LL  175 

to  grope ;  hdt-araiite,  to  grope  with  the  hand  in 
water,  to  catch  fish  with  the  hand.  The  Indo- 
Germanic  root  whence  the  Sanskrit  garb -ha,  belly, 
is  formed,  appears  in  the  Santali  verb  gadrauie,  to 
miscarry,  to  have  an  abortion. 

To  conclude  the  comparison  with  a  more  doubt- 
ful set  of  resemblances.  Most  of  the  Indo-Ger- 
manic  lanofuacres  form  their  term  for  the  human 
species  from  the  root  which  appears  so  strongly  in 
our  English  word  man.  '  Man '  primarily  signifies 
the  thinking  animal,  from  the  radix  7?iau,  '  to  think  ;' 
and  the  same  root  appears  in  Santali  as  the  base  of 
a  widely  ramified  system  of  words  referring  to  the 
human  race,  and  to  the  operations  of  the  human 
intellect.     Thus  : 

Root,  7uan,  to  think. 


English.  Greek.  Sanskrit.  Santali. 

Jlfatt,  etc.   fiifii,  spirit. 2"     A/an,  to  understand.  Man-ete,  to  think. 

fiifioia,  be  Manu,  the  first  man.  Afan-e,  the  soul, 

eager.  AlSnava,  man  in  general.  Aldntko,  the  first  man. 

Mdn-o-i,  man  in  general. 
Aldn-janam  or  A/anoi- 
janam,  born  of  man, 
etc. 


The  missionary  who  has  most  thoroughly  inves- 
tigated the  speech  of  the  isolated  sections  of  the 
Santals,  does  not  mark  these  words  as  being  bor- 
rowed from  the  Sanskrit ;  but  their  resemblance  to 
the  corresponding  words  in  Sanskrit  is  suspiciously 
close.  Even  were  they  truly  aboriginal,  it  would 
be    unsafe    to    build    up    any    theory    upon    them. 

*"  Grundziige  der  Gricchischen  Etymologic,  von  Gcorg   Curtius, 
p.  279,  2d  ed. 


175  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

The  foregoing  examples  have  pointed  to  the  exist- 
ence of  common  roots  for  very  primitive  ideas  in 
Santali  and  Sanskrit ;  but  the  structural  differences 
between  the  Inflecting  and  Compounding  languages 
are  too  great  and  too  completely  unexplained,  to 
permit  of  any  attempt  to  follow  up  these  indications 
to  a  common  or  even  a  cognate  origin. 

While  treating  of  the  alphabet,  we  found  reason- 
able ground  to  conjecture  that  the  Aryan  invaders 
of  India  had  come  in  contact  with  the  Santals,  or  a 
cognate  race,  in  primitive  times,  and  mentioned  that 
the  Prakrit,  a  very  early  form  of  vernacular  San- 
skrit, had  adopted  pure  Santali  terms.  Thus,  in- 
stead of  employing  the  Aryan  stambha,  '  a  post.' 
'  a  pillar,'  *  a  peg,'  the  Sanskrit  population  used 
an  aboriginal  word,  khunt-aP~  This  kinmt-a  is  an 
undisguised  Santali  word,  the  only  change  being  in 
the  terminal  vowel  :  thus,  ancient  Prakrit,  khiint-a ; 
m.odern  Santali,  khunt-i,  *  a  post.'  The  identity  is 
complete,  even  to  the  circumstance  that  in  both 
words  the  cerebral  t  and  7i  are  used.  Bheda,  '  a 
sheep,'  appears  to  furnish  another  example.  It  is  a 
Santal  word  in  use  at  the  present  day  ;  in  Sanskrit 
it  stands  alone,  and  without  any  clear  origin.  The 
cerebral  d,  with  which  it  is  spelt,  renders  the  proba- 
bility still  greater  that  it  is  a  true  aboriginal  word 
which  the  Aryan  settlers  borrowed  from  the  races 
they  found  living  in  the  land.  Again,  Sanskrit 
grammarians  state  that  the  word  poia,^'^  '  belly,'  was 

21   Mrichhakati,  40.     Muirs  Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  ii.  p.  36. 
*2  Mrichhakati,  72  and  112.     Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  ii.  p.  36. 


SANTA  LI  WORDS  IN  PRAKRIT.  ijj 

an  aboriginal  word  that  had  crept  into  the  Prakrit. 
Now,  po^a,  spelt  with  a  cerebral  ^  as  in  Prakrit,  sur- 
vives among  the  Santals  at  the  present  day,  and  in 
almost  every  village  some  corpulent  man  goes  by 
the  nickname  oi po(ca,  *  fat-belly.' 

In  some  cases,  a  word  thus  introduced  from 
the  aboriginal  dialect  into  the  spoken  language  of 
the  victorious  Aryans  has  a  very  sad  story  to  tell. 
Take  for  example  the  Santali  numeral  pon-ea,  or  in 
composition  j25»^;2,  *  four.'  No  vocable  could  be  more 
distinct  from  the  Sanskrit  chatiir,  or  the  modern 
Bencjali,  c/iari,  '  four,'  The  lower  classes  in  Beno-al, 
however,  employ  a  curious  word  signifying  '  one- 
fourth  less.'  Thus,  instead  of  saying  two  and  three- 
quarters,  they  say  a  quarter  less  than  three,  and 
frequently  express  seventy-five  as  one-fourth  less 
than  one  hundred,  and  seven  hundred  and  fifty  as 
one-fourth  less  than  a  thousand.  The  word  never 
appears  in  Bengali  as  a  numeral,  but  always  in  this 
odd  sense  of  one-fourth  less.  It  is  identical,  how- 
ever, with  the  Santali  numeral  '  four.'  Thus  : 
Bengali,  poim-e,  'one-fourth  less;'  Santali,  pou-ca, 
'four.'  In  very  old  Bengali,  moreover,  there  was  a 
word,  po-ya,  '  a  quarter,'  which  still  half  survives  in 
the  vuIgate  of  the  market-place,  and  which  gram- 
marians pretend  to  derive  from  a  Sanskrit  radical, 
pad,  'to  go,'  through  pad  or  pada,  'a  foot;'  hence 
a  metrical  foot,  the  fourth  part  of  a  verse,  also  used 
as  a  technical  term  in  Algebra  to  express  the  least 
root  in  an  affected  square.  In  connecting  poya 
with  pad,  the  grammarians  may  possibly  Ijc  right; 

VOL.   I.  M 


1 78  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

but  in  deriving  poya  directly  from  pad  they  are 
certainly  wrong.  The  Bengali  poune  and  poya 
are  unquestionably  adopted  from  pon-ea,  the  ver- 
nacular of  the  aborigines.  At  first  the  conquered 
tribes  succeeded  in  introducing  their  more  general 
term  poya,  a  quarter,  into  the  composite  language 
which  they  and  their  Aryan  masters  spoke  ;  but 
four  Sanskrit  rivals  were  in  the  field,^^  all  signify- 
ing a  quarter,  and  the  Sanskrit,  being  the  stronger 
language,  drove  the  poor  aboriginal  word  out  of 
Bengali  speech,  as  the  Aryans  had  driven  the 
aborigines  out  of  Bengal.  Moreover,  as  the  abo- 
riginal remnant  which  stayed  in  the  open  country 
were  reduced  to  slavery,  so  their  word  for  '  a  fourth,' 
while  degraded  from  the  polite  language,  was  allowed 
to  survive  in  the  mouths  of  hucksters,  who  buy  and 
sell  at  this  day  by  the  aboriginal  poya,  '  quarter.* 
On  the  other  hand,  the  aboriginal  term  for  '  one- 
fourth  less'  found  no  Sanskrit  synonym  to  oppose 
it,  and  so  was  able  to  hold  its  ground  in  the  com- 
posite speech  of  the  Bengali  people. 

The  Santals,  on  their  side,  have  borrowed  very 
liberally  from  Aryan  speech.  Their  vocabulary  is 
filled  with  words  of  unmistakeably  Sanskrit  origin, 
and  which  appear  to  have  come,  not  from  Beno-ali 
or  Hindi,  but  through  some  more  ancient  dialect. 
We  have  seen  that  Prakrit  came  in  contact  with 
Santali  and  borrowed  from  it  at  a  very  distant  date ; 

"  (i)  Chaturtha;  (2)  Chaturthansha  ;  (3)  Pada,  only  as  a  term 
in  mathematics  or  prosody;  (4)  Ek-ha,  contracted  from  Eka  pada 
(Haughton). 


PRAKRIT  WORDS  JK  SANTALI.  179 

and  it  would  be  easy  to  show  that  Santali  is  under 
similar  obligations  to  Prakrit.  Its  meagre  list  of 
abstract  terms  is  transferred  almost  without  change 
from  the  Apabransa  of  the  ancient  Aryan  settlers. 

The  political  unit  of  the  Aryan  race,  from  its 
first  historical  appearance  in  India,  is  the  village,  and 
upon  village  institutions  the  whole  social  economy  of 
the  Hindus  is  based.  Of  the  village  as  a  political 
unit,  the^r^;;^  of  the  Indo-Aryan  tongues,  no  trace 
exists    in    o-enuine    Santali.      The   aboriiJ^inal    race 

o  o 

goes  a  step  further  back,  and  rests  its  system  on 
the  simpler  political  unit  of  a  nomadic  society,  the 
family.  The  Indo-Aryan  w^ord  for  a  household, 
k7ila,  is  not  found  by  itself  in  Santali,  but  it  subsists 
as  the  groundwork  of  every  Santal  community.  A 
Santal  village  consists  essentially  of  a  single  street, 
with  houses  on  each  side  ;  and  the  pathway  run- 
nine  between  is  called  throughout  the  whole  Santal 
country  the  kiila-Iii,  the  divider  of  the  families. 

Those  who  wish  to  pursue  the  subject  of  Santal 
speech  further,  may  turn  to  the  Grammar  given  in 
the  Appendix  (H).  Enough  has  been  said  in  the 
foregoing  pages  to  establish  five  points  with  regard 
to  this  important  section  of  the  aboriginal  hill-men 
of  western  Bengal. 

\st.  That  their  vernacular  is  in  structure  distinct 
from  Sanskrit  and  the  Inflecting  order  of  speech,  and 
belongs  to  Schleicher's  second  class,  the  Compound- 
ing languages. 

2d.  Nevertheless,  that  it  appears  to  contain  cer- 
tain roots  expressive  of  very  simple  ideas,  in  com- 


i8o  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

mon  with  Sanskrit,  but  not  derived  from  Sanskrit, 
in  the  same  way  as  the  Semitic  and  Aryan  lan- 
CTuap-es  exhibit  a  few  identical  roots,  not  directly 
derived  from  each  other,  but  probably  from  a  com- 
mon source."^ 

3^/.  That,  at  a  very  remote  period,  Sanskrit  came 
in  contact  with  Santali,  or  the  ancient  representative 
of  Santali ;  that  Sanskrit  adopted  from  Santali,  pro- 
bablyy  a  number  of  aboriginal  sounds  with  which  to 
supplement  its  primitive  meagre  alphabet,^^  cer- 
tainly several  words  which  appear  unchanged  in  the 
Prakrit  of  ancient  times  and  in  the  Santali  of  the 
present  day  ;  that  Bengali,  which,  roughly  speak- 
ing, is  to  Prakrit  what  Prakrit  was  to  Sanskrit,  has 
'Tone  on  borrowino-  from  Santali,  while  Santali  has 
borrowed  very  largely  from  Aryan  dialects  of  more 
ancient  date. 

A^th.  That  the  study  of  Santali,  along  with  the 
other  aboriginal  dialects  of  India,  is  possibly  destined 
to  do  for  the  Compounding  languages  what  the 
study  of  Sanskrit  has  done  for  the  Inflecting  lan- 
guages ;  that  a  scientific  method  exists,  according 
to  which  this  study  might  be  conducted ;  that  in 
Bengal  and  its  dependencies  the  whole  varieties  of 
human  speech  meet,  presenting  peculiar  facilities 
for  research,  and  affording  a  basis  from  which  a 
properly  equipped  philologer  might  sail  forth  and 
discover  a  new  linguistic  world. 

-^  Miiller's  Survey  of  the  Three  Families  of  Languages,  p.  27,  2d 
ed.     Donaldson's  Maskil  le-Sopher,  p.  12-41.     Gesenius  ;  Ewald. 

2*  According  to  Schleicher,  the  Sanskrit  alphabet  originally  con- 
tained only  fifteen  consonants,  and  adopted  nineteen  from  the  aborigines. 


RELIGION  OF  THE  SANTA LS.  18 1 

^th.  That,  as  Sanskrit  points  to  the  north-west 
of  the  Himalayas  as  the  starting-point  of  the 
Indo-Aryans,  so  SantaH  points  to  the  countries 
on  the  north-east — the  ctmabula  of  Compoundinf 
speech — as  the  primitive  home  of  the  Indian  abori- 
gines ;  while  Santal  legends  furnish  hints  as  to 
their  march  through  Eastern  Bengal,  spreading 
westwards  until  beaten  back,  before  Aryan  migra- 
tions, to  the  highlands  of  the  lower  valley. 

Of  a  supreme  and  beneficent  God  the  Santal  has 
no  conception.  His  religion  is  a  religion  of  terror 
and  deprecation.  Hunted  and  driven  from  country 
to  country  by  a  superior  race,  he  cannot  understand 
how  a  Being  can  be  more  powerful  than  himself, 
without  wishing  to  harm  him.  Discourses  upon 
the  attributes  of  the  Deity  excite  no  emotion  among 
the  more  isolated  sections  of  the  race,  except  a  dis- 
position to  run  away  and  hide  themselves  in  the 
jungle,  and  the  only  reply  made  to  a  missionary 
at  the  end  of  an  eloquent  description  of  the  omni- 
potence of  God,  was,  '  And  what  if  that  Strong  One 
should  eat  me  ?' 

But  althouo^h  the  Santal  has  no  God  from  whose 
benignity  he  may  expect  favour,  there  exist  a  mul- 
titude of  demons  and  evil  spirits,  whose  spite  he 
endeavours  by  supplications  to  avert.  So  far  from 
being  without  a  religion,  his  rites  are  infinitely 
more  numerous  than  those  of  the  Hindu  :  the 
sui)crstitious  element  in  his  nature  is  more  on  the 
alert,  and  his  belief  in  the  near  presence  of  an 
unseen  world  more  productive  of  practical   result.s 


i82  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

in  his  conduct.  He  knows  no  God  who  will  reward 
the  good ;  but  a  host  of  demons  are  ever  at  hand 
to  punish  the  wicked,  to  scatter  diseases,  to  spread 
murrain  among  the  cattle,  to  blight  the  crops,  and 
only  to  be  bribed  by  animal-suffering  and  a  frequent 
outpouring  of  blood. 

The  worship  of  the  Santals  is  based  upon  the 
family.  Each  household  has  its  own  deity  {pra- 
bongci),  which  it  adores  with  unknown  rites,  and 
scrupulously  conceals  from  strangers.  So  strict  is 
the  secrecy  that  one  brother  does  not  know  what 
another  brother  worships,  and  the  least  allusion 
to  the  subject  brings  a  suspicious  cloud  upon  the 
mountaineers  brow,  or  sends  him  off  abruptly 
at  the  top  of  his  speed  to  the  forest.  So  far  as 
I  have  been  able  to  learn,  the  prayers  addressed 
to  these  family  gods  are  to  avert  evil  rather 
than  to  obtain  benefits.  Thus  :  '  May  the  storm 
spare  my  thatch ;'  'may  the  black  rot  pass  by  my 
rice-fields;'  'let  my  wife  not  bear  a  daughter;' 
'  may  the  usurer  be  eaten  by  wild  beasts.'  The 
head  of  the  family  on  his  death-bed  whispers  the 
name  of  the  family  god  to  his  eldest  son,  and  thus 
the  same  object  of  domestic  worship  is  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation.  Unlike  the 
Latin  Penates — the  beneficent  protectors  of  the 
Roman  household — the  family  god  of  the  Santals 
represents  the  secret  principle  of  evil,  which  no  bolts 
can  shut  out,  and  which  dwells  an  unseen  but  eter- 
nally malignant  presence  beside  every  hearth.  In 
addition  to  the  family  god,  each  household  worships 


FAMILY  AND   VILLAGE  GODS.  183 

the  ghosts  of  its  ancestors.  The  Santal,  without 
any  distinct  conception  of  his  own  immortahty  or  of  a 
future  hfe,  cannot  beheve  that  the  Hnk  between  man 
and  this  earth  is  wholly  dissolved  by  death,  and  ima- 
gines himself  constantly  surrounded  by  a  shadowy 
world.  Disembodied  spirits  flit  disconsolately  among 
the  fields  they  once  tilled,  stand  upon  the  banks  of 
the  mountain  streams  in  which  they  fished,  and 
glide  in  and  out  of  the  dwellings  where  they  were 
born,  grew  up,  and  died.  These  ghostly  crowds  re- 
quire to  be  pacified  in  many  ways,  and  the  Santal 
dreads  his  Lares  as  much  as  he  does  his  Penates. 

Adjoining  the  Santal  village  is  a  grove  of  their 
national  tree,^*^  which  they  believe  to  be  the  favourite 
resort  of  all  the  family  gods  of  the  little  community. 
From  its  silent  gloom  the  bygone  generations  watch 
their  children  and  children's  children  playing  their 
several  parts  in  life,  not  altogether  with  an  unfriendly 
eye.  Nevertheless  the  ghostly  inhabitants  of  the 
grove  are  sharp  critics,  and  deal  out  crooked  limbs, 
cramps  and  leprosy,  unless  duly  appeased.  Several 
times  a  year  the  whole  hamlet,  dressed  out  in  its 
showiest,  repairs  to  the  grove  to  do  honour  to  the 
Lares  Rurales  with  music  and  sacrifice.  Men  and 
women  join  hands,  and,  dancing  in  a  large  circle, 
chant  songs  in  remembrance  of  the  original  founder 
of  the  community,  who  is  venerated  as  the  head  of 
the  village  Pantheon.  Goats,  red  cocks,  and  chickens 
are  sacrificed  ;  and  while  some  of  the  worshippers  are 
told  off  to  cook  the  flesh  for  the  common  festival  at 

2*  The  Sal  {Shores  Ro/^ustn,  Hort.  Beng.  p.  42) 


1 84  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  LSENGAL. 

great  fires,  the  rest  separate  into  families,  and  dance 
round  the  particular  trees  which  they  fancy  their 
domestic  Lares  chiefly  haunt.  Among  the  more 
superstitious  tribes,  it  is  customary  for  each  family 
to  dance  round  every  single  tree,  in  order  that  they 
may  not  by  any  chance  omit  the  one  in  which  their 
gods  may  be  residing ! 

Besides  the  village  deities  of  the  Sal  grove,  the 
Santal  finds  gods,  ghosts,  or  demons,  requiring  to 
be  appeased,  wherever  he  goes.  Thus,  the  Abgi, 
or  ghouls  who  eat  men  ;  the  Pargana  Bonga,  parish 
deities  whose  name  is  legion  :  both  of  which  classes 
seem  to  be  the  tutelary  divinities  of  ancient  villages 
which  have  been  deserted.  They  now  wander  dis- 
consolate through  the  Santal  territory  until  they 
find  some  tree  or  cave  to  dwell  in.  Traces  of  that 
superstition,  to  which  the  -Greeks  have  given  so 
beautiful  a  form,  survive  in  the  Da-bonga  (river 
demons),  Daddi-bonga  (well  demons),  Pakri-bonga 
(tank  demons),  Buru-bonga  (mountain  demons), 
Bir-bonga  (forest  gods).  Distinct  traces  of  Sabean 
rites  also  exist  among  the  Santals.  Chando,  the 
sun-god,  although  he  seldom  receives  sacrifice,  is 
theoretically  acknowledged  as  supreme.  Sometimes 
they  adore  him  as  the  Sim-bonga,  the  god  who  eats 
chickens,  and  once  in  four  or  five  years  a  feast  in 
his  honour  is  held.  The  Santal  religion,  in  fact, 
seems  to  consist  of  a  mythology  constructed  upon 
the  family  basis,  but  rooted  in  a  still  more  primitive 
system  of  nature-worship. 

The  next  step  to  the  village,  in  a  society  orga- 


TRIBE-GODS.  185 

nized  upon  the  family  basis,  is  the  tribe.  Of  these 
there  are  seven  among  the  Santals,"  each  of  wliicli 
claims  descent  from  a  common  parent,  and  preserves 
its  own  rites.  Once  a  year  the  tribe-god  Abe- 
bonga  is  adored  with  great  solemnity ;  but  as  the 
children  follow  the  tribe  of  their  father,  only  male 
animals  are  sacrificed,  and  women  are  excluded  from 
the  feast  which  ends  the  ceremony.  One  festival 
is  so  like  another,  that  a  single  description  by  an 
eye-witness  will  suffice  :  '  Old  and  young,  male  and 
female,  assembled  in  thousands,  and  entered  with 
great  spirit  and  gusto  into  the  hilarity  of  the  occa- 
sion. The  women,  in  their  best,  set  off  with  massive 
brass  ornaments,  joined  hands  with  the  men,  and 
danced  in  the  open  air  with  their  heads  uncovered. 
The  men  aimed  at  something  more  gay  and  gro- 
tesque in  their  costume  ;  and  if  all  the  colours  of 
the  rainbow  were  not  displayed  by  them,  certainly 
the  hedgehog,  the  peacock,  and  a  variety  of  the 
feathered  tribe,  had  been  laid  under  contribution 
in  order  to  supply  the  young  Santal  beaux  with 
plumes.  These  varied  both  as  to  length  and 
beauty.  While  some  were  no  more  than  a  single 
foot  in  height,  others  were  full  five  feet,  and  shot 
up  like  stocks  of  lettuce  gone  to  seed.  Nor  was 
the  perpendicular  regarded  as  the  only  or  most 
graceful  position  for  wearing  these  borrowed 
feathers.  They  were  set  and  hung  in  all  direc- 
tions   and    inclinations,    from    the    upright    to    the 

-'    riic  number  varies  in  different  parts  of  the  country — twelve  in 
the  north,  seven  in  the  southern  and  central  settlements. 


i86  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

horizontal.  Strips  of  red,  blue,  and  yellow  cloth, 
bound  about  their  heads  and  loins,  added  to  the 
effect.  The  drum  and  fife  were  accompanied  by 
the  human  voice,  and  parties  of  twenty  or  thirty 
joining  hands  danced  in  circles,  or  more  correctly, 
in  semicircles.  There  may  have  been  twenty-five 
or  thirty  of  these  parties  in  the  field,  and  each 
with  its  own  music  in  its  centre,  who  laboured 
and  danced  the  livelong  day  as  well  as  one  whole 
night.  The  continued  heavy  roar  of  so  many 
drums,  and  the  clamour  of  a  multitude  of  human 
voices,  the  wild  gaiety  and  grotesque  costumes  of 
the  dancers,  and  their  half-naked  bodies,  all  com- 
bined to  produce  a  spectacle  of  savage  life  at  once 
imposing  and  impressive.' ^^ 

What  the  tribe  is  to  the  family,  that  the  race  is 
to  the  tribe.  The  national  god  of  the  Santals  is 
Marang  Buru,  the  Great  Mountain,  who  appears  in 
their  legends  as  the  guardian  and  sponsor  of  their 
race ;  the  divinity  who  watched  over  their  birth, 
provided  for  their  earliest  wants,  and  brought  their 
first  parents  together  in  marriage.  In  private  and 
in  public,  in  time  of  tribulation  and  in  time  of 
wealth,  in  health  and  in  sickness,  on  the  natal  bed 
and  by  the  death-bed,  the  Great  Mountain  is  in- 
voked with  bloody  offerings.  He  is  the  one  reli- 
gious link  that  binds  together  the  nation  ;  and  the 
sacrifices,  instead  of  beincr  limited  to  a  few  animals, 
as  is  the  case  with  the  family  gods,  may  be  any- 
thing that  grows  from   or   moves  upon   the  earth. 

2S  Mr,  Phillips, 


THE  RACE-GOD.  187 

Goats,  sheep,  bullocks,  fowls,  rice,  fruit,  flowers, 
beer,  the  berries  from  the  jungle,  a  head  of  Indian 
corn  from  the  field,  or  even  a  handful  of  earth  ;  all 
are  acceptable  to  the  Great  Mountain,  who  is,  in  a 
sense  lower  than  a  Christian  understands  by  the 
epithet,  but  still  in  a  high  sense,  the  Common  Father 
of  the  people.  It  was  he  who  divinely  instituted 
worship,  who  has  journeyed  with  the  race  from  its 
primitive  home,  shared  its  defeats  and  flights,  and 
still  remains  with  it,  the  symbol  of  the  Everlasting 
and  Unchangeable  One. 

The  Great  Mountain  forms  the  most  perfect 
type  of  the  household  god.  He  was  the  object 
adored  by  the  first  family,  then  by  the  first  com- 
munity of  families  or  village,  then  by  the  first  tribe, 
and  so  by  degrees  by  the  whole  race.  He  exhibits 
the  ultimate  result  of  a  religion  constructed  on  the 
family  basis — the  father  of  gods  and  men  in  a  Pan- 
theon of  Lares. 

As  in  religions  of  the  Aryan  type,  the  Santa! 
system  has  a  tendency  to  divide  the  Supreme  God 
into  a  triad,  one  of  whom  is  an  abstract  conception, 
while  the  other  two  represent  the  male  and  female 
principles.  The  Great  Mountain  represents  neither 
man  nor  woman,  but  the  life-sustaining  providence 
necessary  for  the  existence  of  cither.  He  has  a 
brother  and  a  sister,  who  are  worshipped  by  the 
priests  with  libations — also  with  white  goats  and 
fowls  of  a  particular  colour  upon  the  banks  of  the 
Damooda — but  who  occupy  an  inferior  positi<Mi  to 
the    Great    Mountain,  and  are  almost    unknown    in 


1 88  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  forest.  The  brother's  name  is  Maniko,  who  is 
to  the  Santal  race  what  Manu  in  the  abstract  is  to 
the  Sanskrit — to  wit,  the  First  Male.  He  is  the 
husband  as  well  as  brother  of  the  female  deity  in 
the  triad,  Jaher-era,  the  first  female,  and  the  Santals 
derive  their  word  for  irregular  connections  between 
the  sexes  from  the  unconsecrated  espousal  of  their 
first  parents  :  thus  jaher-ete,  to  take  or  live  with  a 
woman  as  a  concubine,  that  is,  without  the  sanction 
of  marriage,  even  as  Maniko  took  Jaher-era. 

The  worship  of  the  Great  Mountain  is  essen- 
tially a  worship  of  blood.  If  the  sacrificer  cannot 
afford  an  animal,  it  is  with  a  red  flower  or  a  red  fruit 
that  he  approaches  the  divinity.  When  the  English 
first  obtained  possession  of  the  Beerbhoom  moun- 
tains, human  sacrifices  were  common,  and  a  regular 
trade  was  carried  on  to  supply  the  victims.  If  they 
are  practised  now,  it  is  in  the  depths  of  the  jungle, 
and  with  that  impenetrable  secrecy  which  enabled 
the  Santals  to  sacrifice  bullocks  to  the  same  god  in 
the  days  of  the  Hindu  rajahs.  The  Santal  baffles 
the  curious  with  indirect  answers  ;  and  the  most  that 
can  be  eot  out  of  him  is,  *  How  can  we  sacrifice  men  ? 
In  these  days  men  are  dear;  who  could  pay  their 
price  ?* 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  sanguinary 
aboriginal  deity  is  the  Rudra  of  ancient  Sanskrit 
literature,  and  the  Siva  of  the  mixed  Hindu  popu- 
lation which  now  occupies  the  plains.-^  The  wor- 
ship of  both  is  in  so  many  respects  alike,  that  the 

2^  Original  Sanskrit  Texts,  ii.  437. 


THE  RACE-GOD  AND  SIVA.  189 

less  observant  sort  of  travellers  generally  identify 
them;  and  one  of  the  missionaries  who  has  laboured 
for  some  time  among  the  hill-men,  and  whose  reports 
form  part  of  the  materials  on  which  this  chapter  is 
based,  habitually  denotes  the  blood-loving  god  of  the 
Santals,  Siva  or  Mahadeva.  There  are  indications 
in  the  Veda,  held  to  be  more  or  less  distinct  b)- 
different  scholars,  of  the  struggle  of  the  aboriginal 
deity  for  admission  into  the  Aryan  Olympus,  and 
indeed  a  faint  tradition  survives  of  his  first  entrance 
into  that  august  convention.  '  The  gods  went  to 
heaven,'  says  an  ancient  text ;  '  they  asked  Rudra 
(Siva),  "  Who  art  thou  ?"  '^^  The  stranger  declares 
that  he  is  the  one  supreme  god,  which  indeed  he 
was  amonof  the  aborigines  ;  and  as  the  Romans 
identified  their  Etruscan  deities  with  those  of 
Greece,  so  Rudra  (Siva)  took  his  seat  in  the 
assembly  of  Ar)an  gods,  not  as  a  new-comer,  but 
as  another  form  of  Ao^ni,  one  of  the  most  ancient 
of  the  Indo-Germanic  divinities.  This  identifica- 
tion, however,  was  not  accomplished  all  at  once ;  so 
that  while  the  Aryan  priests  of  one  part  of  the 
conquered  country  chanted,  '  Reverence  to  the 
Rudra,  who  is  in  Agni,  who  is  in  the  waters,  who 
has  entered  the  plants  and  bushes,  who  has  formed 
these  worlds;'^'  the  Aryan  priests  of  another  part, 
where  the  identification  had  not  completely  taken 
place,  adored   Rudra  and   Agni  as  distinct  gods."''''' 

^^  Original  Sanskrit  Texts,  iv.  298. 
"'  Atharva  Veda,  vii.  87,  i. 
'*  Id.  viii.  5-10;  Texts,  iv. 


iQo  I'HE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  RENGAL. 

The  early  Sanskrit  theologians  distinctly  compre- 
hended this,  and  stated  very  truly,  that  among  dif- 
ferent nations  in  India  the  Supreme  God  passed 
by  different  names,  but  that  this  god  was  to  be 
understood  to  be  the  same  as  the  original  Sanskrit 
deity  Agni.  '  Agni  is  a  god,'  says  an  ancient  text. 
'  These  are  his  names  :  Sarva,  as  the  Eastern  people 
call  him  ;  Bhava,  as  the  Bahikas  (call  him)  ;  Pasu- 
nampati  (Lord  of  Beasts),  Rudra,  and  Agni.  All 
these  names  except  Agni  are  ungentle,'  probably 
meaning  that  they  represented  the  god  in  his  san- 
guinary form,  as  worshipped  by  the  aborigines. 
'Agni  is  his  gentlest  appellation;'  probably  mean- 
ing that  it  represents  the  god  in  the  beneficent 
character  in  which  he  was  known  to  the  Aryan 
conquerors. 

Without  accepting  Signor  Gorreslo's  views  of 
the  Hametic  origin  of  the  aborigines,  I  think  he 
has  very  well  expressed  the  process  by  which  the 
aboriginal  deity  entered  the  Sanskrit  Pantheon. 
'  It  appears  to  me  that  in  this  fact,'  that  is  the 
interruption  of  Daxa's  sacrifice,  '  the  struggle  of 
the  ancient  religions  of  India  is  represented  under 
a  mythical  veil.  Siva — a  deity,  as  I  believe,  of 
the  Cush  or  Hametic  tribes,  which  preceded  on 
the  soil  of  India  the  Aryan  or  Indo-Sanskrit  race 
— wished  to  have  part  in  the  worship  of  the  con- 
querors, and  in  their  sacrifices,  from  which  he  was 
excluded ;  and  by  disturbing  their  rites,  and  by  a 
display  of  violence  at  their  sacrifices,  he  succeeded 

*3  Satapatha  Brahmanam,  i.  7,  3,  8.     Texts,  iv. 


J.V  ABORIGINAL  SIVA- TEMPLE.  1 9 1 

in  being  admitted  to  partake  in  them.'  '^  In  another 
place  Signer  Gorresio  speaks  of  Siva  as  the  deity 
'  who  entered  into  the  Indo-Sanskrit  Olympus  by 
one  of  those  religious  syncretisms  of  which  traces 
are  so  frequently  to  be  found  in  the  ancient  systems 
of  worship.* 

The  Siva  of  the  present  day  has  his  most 
favoured  abodes  among  those  solemn  phenomena 
of  nature,  of  which  the  god  of  the  Santals,  the 
Great  Mountain,  is  the  type.  As  before  mentioned, 
thousands  of  Hindus  annually  resort  to  his  temple 
among  the  Western  Highlands  of  Beerbhoom  ;  and 
a  curious  proof  of  the  identity  of  Siva  with  the 
aboriginal  deity  is,  that  the  shrine  traces  its  origin 
to  a  Santal,  and  is  called  by  the  name  of  a  Santal 
to  this  day.  The  hills  among  which  it  is  built  were 
regarded  during  ages  with  peculiar  veneration  by 
the  aboriginal  tribes  ;  and  notwithstanding  that  the 
Brahmans  have  now  completely  ousted  them  from 
the  temple,  and  called  the  gcnhis  loci  by  a  Hindu 
name,  the  feeling  is  still  so  strong  as  to  make  a 
learned  missionary  question  whether  these  moun- 
tains are  not  the  cunabiila  of  the  Santal  race.  The 
Brahmans  who  minister  at  the  holy  place  indignantly 
deny  the  connection  of  the  Siva  whom  they  worship 
with  the  national  god  of  the  aborigines  by  whom 
they  are  surrounded,  and  try  to  rebut  the  lasting- 
testimony  which  the  very  name  of  their  temple 
gives  against  them  by  an  improbable  fable. 

In  the  old  time,  they  sa)-,  a  band  of  Brahmans 

'*   RciiKirks  on  Raniayaiia,  ix.  291,  note  35.     Texts,  iv.  349. 


192  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

settled  on  the  banks  of  the  beautiful  highland  lake 
beside  which  the  Holy  City  stands.  Around  them 
there  was  nothincr  but  the  forest  and  mountains, 
in  which  dwelt  the  black  races.  The  Brahmans 
placed  the  symbol  of  their  god  Siva  near  the  lake, 
and  did  sacrifice  to  it ;  but  the  black  tribes  would 
not  sacrifice  to  it,  but  came,  as  before,  to  the  three 
great  stones^'  which  their  fathers  had  worshipped, 
and  which  are  to  be  seen  at  the  western  entrance 
of  the  Holy  City  to  this  day.  The  Brahmans, 
moreover,  ploughed  the  land,  and  brought  water 
from  the  lake  to  nourish  the  soil ;  but  the  hill-men 
hunted  and  fished  as  of  old,  or  tended  their  herds, 
while  their  women  tilled  little  patches  of  Indian 
corn.  But  in  process  of  time  the  Brahmans,  finding 
the  land  good,  became  slothful,  giving  themselves 
up  to  lust,  and  seldom  calling  on  their  god  Siva. 
This  the  black  tribes,  who  came  to  worship  the 
great  stones,  saw  and  wondered  at  more  and  more, 
till  at  last  one  of  them,  by  name  Byju,  a  man  of  a 
mighty  arm,  and  rich  in  all  sorts  of  cattle,  became 
wroth  at  the  lies  and  wantonness  of  the  Brahmans, 
and  vowed  he  would  beat  the  symbol  of  their  god 
Siva  with  his  club  every  day  before  touching  food. 

^'''  '  Three  huge  inonohths  of  contorted  gneiss  rock,  of  great  beauty. 
Two  are  vertical,  and  the  third  is  laid  upon  the  heads  of  the  two 
uprights  as  a  horizontal  beam.  These  massive  stones  are  twelve 
feet  in  length,  each  weighing  upwards  of  seven  tons.  They  are 
quadrilateral,  each  face  being  two  feet  six  inches,  or  ten  feet  round 
each  stone.  The  horizontal  beam  is  retained  in  its  place  by  mortise 
and  tenon.  By  whom  or  when  these  ponderous  stones  were  erected, 
no  one  knows.' — Revenue  Survey  Report  by  Captain  W.  S.  Sherwill, 
p.  6.     4to,  Calcutta. 


nS  LEGEND.  193 

This  he  did  ;  but  one  morning  his  cows  strayed 
into  the  forest,  and  after  seeking  them  all  da)',  he 
came  home  hungry  and  weary,  and  having  hastily 
bathed  in  the  lake,  sat  down  to  his  supper.  Just  as 
he  stretched  out  his  hand  to  take  the  food,  he  called 
to  mind  his  vow  ;  and,  worn  out  as  he  was,  he  got 
up,  limped  painfully  to  the  Brahman's  idol  on  the 
margin  of  the  lake,  and  beat  it  with  his  club.  Then 
suddenly  a  splendid  form,  sparkling  with  jewels, 
rose  from  the  waters,  and  said  :  '  Behold  the  man 
who  forgets  his  hunger  and  his  weariness  to  beat 
me,  while  my  priests  sleep  with  their  concubines 
at  home,  and  neither  give  me  to  eat  nor  to  drink. 
Let  him  ask  of  me  what  he  will,  and  it  shall  be 
given.'  Byju  answered,  '  I  am  strong  of  arm  and 
rich  in  cattle.  I  am  a  leader  of  my  people  ;  what 
want  I  more  ?  Thou  art  called  Nath  (Lord)  ;  let 
me  too  be  called  Lord,  and  let  thy  temple  go  by 
my  name.'  '  Amen,'  replied  the  deity;  'henceforth 
thou  art  not  Byju,  but  Byjnath,  and  my  temple 
shall  be  called  by  thy  name.' 

So  close  is  the  resemblance  between  the  Great 
Mountain  of  the  Santals  and  the  Siva  of  the  mixed 
1  lindu  population,  that  several  natives,  without  any 
previous  study  of  the  question,  and  judging  only 
from  the  attributes  and  visible  worship,  translated 
the  Santal  name  for  their  god  as  '  the  Mahadeva 
{ix.  Siva)  of  the  Hindus.' 

In  a  preceding  chapter  I  have  stated  that  the 
religion  of  the  present  mixed  Hindu  population 
bears    witness    to    the    influence    of   the   aboriginal 

VOL.   I.  .N 


194  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

element.  I  have  now  reviewed  the  reHgion  of  the 
aborigines  as  practised  among  the  mountaineers 
of  Beerbhoom,  and  I  think  it  may  safely  be  con- 
cluded that  the  Hindus  have  borrowed  their  house- 
hold god^"  and  its  secret  rites  from  the  primitive 
races  whom  they  enslaved  ;  that  they  have  borrowed 
their  village  gods  "  with  the  ghosts  and  demons  that 
haunt  so  many  trees  ;  and  finally,  that  they  have 
borrowed  the  sanguinary  deity  (Siva)  who  is  now 
universally  adored  by  the  lower  orders  throughout 
Bengal.  Among  the  Hindus  these  various  super- 
stitions are  isolated,  scattered,  unconnected  with 
each  other  ;  among  the  Santals  they  stand  forth  as 
the  natural,  inevitable  gradations  in  the  mythology 
of  a  race  which  bases  its  worship,  as  it  bases  its 
whole  social  organization,  on  the  family,  the  political 
unit  of  patriarchal  times. 

Mysteriously  connected  with  the  worship  of  Siva 
is  Buddhism.  How  the  monotheistic  element  in 
Sanskrit  faith  revolted  against  the  material  and  poly- 
theistic tendency,  Professor  Miiller's  charming  works 
have  made  familiar  to  the  general  reader.  But  the 
subsequent  fate  of  the  reformation,  how  it  was  ex- 
tinguished after  no  long  interval  in  the  centres  of 
Brahmanism,  and  fled  to  the  north,  the  east,  and 
the  south,  shedding  new  light  among  the  lapsed 
races  of  India,  and  ultimately  reaching  the  confines 
of  the  Asiatic  world,  are  to  this  day  matters  of 
recondite  scholarship.  Driven  forth  from  the  San- 
skrit kingdom  of  Oudh,   Buddhism   conquered   for 

8^  The  Shal-gram.  ^'  The  Gram-devatas. 


BUDDHISM  AND  ABORIGINAL  RITES.       195 

itself  the  mountains  and  valleys  of  the  Lower  Pro- 
vinces ;  won  the  hearts  of  their  semi -aboriginal 
population  ;  and  founded  shrines  or  holy  cities  in 
every  district,  from  Sarnath,^^  beyond  the  northern 
boundary  of  Bengal  Proper,  to  Jaggarnath,  which 
is  washed  by  the  ocean  on  the  extreme  south.  It 
consolidated  scattered  tribes  into  a  powerful  con- 
federacy, under  a  religious  dynasty^^  which  waged 
not  unsuccessful  war  upon  the  kingdom  whence  the 
reformation  had  been  expelled,  and  which,  in  the 
ruins  of  Gour,  has  left  monuments  of  its  greatness 
that  neither  time  nor  the  change  in  the  course  of 
the  Gano-es  can  efface. 

Buddhist  relics  abound  in  every  one  of  the 
western  districts  of  Lower  Bengal ;  and  wherever 
they  are  most  numerous,  there  the  worship  of  Siva 
has  at  present  the  strongest  hold  on  the  people. 
It  is  curious  to  note,  moreover,  that  many  of  the 
Buddhist  figures  in  Lower  Bengal  have  flat  or 
irregular  noses  and  thick  lips,  such  as  are  never 
seen  among  the  Sanskrit-speaking  races,  but  which 
precisely  correspond  with  the  Sanskrit  accounts  of 
the  aborigines,  and  which  at  this  day  are  the  most 
marked  features  in  the  physiognomy  of  the  Santals 
of  Beerbhoom  as  contrasted  with  the  Brahman  of 
the  plains.  The  artists  who  cut  these  statues,  now 
half- buried  in  the  ground,  were  aborigines  ;  the 
men  and  women  from  whom  they  took  their  idea 
of  the  human  face  were  aborigines  :  they  could  only 

*®  Near  the  modern  Benares. 

*®  The  Pal  Rajalis,  who  succeeded  Gajanta. 


196  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

have  been  objects  of  veneration  in  communities  in 
which  the  aboriginal  element  predominated ;  and 
when  the  next  wave  of  Aryans  flooded  Lower 
Bengal,  these  flat-nosed,  thick-lipped  statues  were 
treated  with  the  same  contempt  as  the  aboriginal 
races  whose  effigies  they  were. 

The  legends  of  the  ancient  Sarnath  distinctly 
preserve  the  struggle  between  the  two  religions. 
First  the  seat  of  aboriginal  or  Siva  worship,  then 
converted  to  Buddhism  by  the  king  of  Lower 
Bengal,  finally  reconquered  to  Hinduism  by  the 
Canouj  Brahmans,  and  reduced  to  ashes,  its  history 
and  even  its  name  have  become  matters  of  specula- 
tion among  native  scholars,  who  find,  with  surprise, 
a  plain  allusion  to  Siva-worship  in  the  very  name 
of  the  northern  Buddhist  metropolis/"  Close  by 
the  Holy  City,  among  the  mountains  of  Beei"bhoom, 
the  only  spot  in  those  secluded  highlands  where 
Siva-worship  exists,  we  find  unmistakeable  Buddhist 
remains.  The  same  close  connection  between  Bud- 
dhism and  Siva-worship  appears  in  Southern  India.*^ 
Everywhere  the  Buddhist  religion  was  overpowered, 
and  immediately  succeeded  by  the  worship  of  the 
sanguinary  aboriginal  deity  who  in  ancient  times 
fought  his  way  into  the  Aryan  Olympus. 

The  philosophical  relation  of  Siva -worship  to 
Buddhism  is  beyond  the  humble  scope  of  a  rural 
annalist ;   but  no   one   can   study   the   minute   local 


'•''  A  recent  account  of  Sarnath,  by  a  Hindu  antiquary,  appeared 
in  the  Englishman s  Weekly  yournal,  vol.  iv.  No.  29.     4to,  Calcutta. 
*^  Major  Syke's  Report  on  the  Land  Tenures  of  the  Dekkan. 


B  UDDHISM  AND  SI  VA-  WORSHIP.  1 97 

history  of  Bengal  Proper  without  finding  memorials 
of  the  process  by  which  the  actual  change  was 
effected.  The  Buddhist  fugitives  from  persecution 
in  the  north  appear  as  kings  in  the  Lower  Valley, 
in  part  converting,  in  part  conquering,  the  aboriginal 
tribes.  Indeed,  there  are  indications  that  the 
Buddhists  owed  their  easy  victories,  in  no  small 
degree,  to  the  circumstance  that  they  presented 
themselves  in  Lower  Bengal  as  the  deliverers  of 
the  classes  of  aboriginal  descent  from  the  tyranny 
and  praedial  slavery  which  the  preceding  waves  of 
Aryans  had  imposed.  The  religion  of  the  earlier 
Aryan  invaders  was  a  positive  one,  favouring  social 
inequalities,  and  interfering  with  the  practical  life 
of  the  people  :  the  Buddhist  religion  was  a  negative 
one,  declaring  equality  between  man  and  man,  and 
secluding  itself  as  much  as  possible  from  practical 
life.  Buddhism,  therefore,  was  a  great  gain  to  the 
semi-aboriginal  masses  of  Lower  Bengal,  and  quickly 
obtained  their  allegiance.  But  a  negative  religion, 
though  it  may  be  the  creed  of  a  dynasty,  is  never 
the  religion  of  a  people.  Buddhism  quickly  lost  its 
active  principle  in  Lower  Bengal,  and  retreated  to 
monasteries  or  to  secluded  religious  villages  among 
the  mountains,  such  as  the  Holy  City  in  Beer- 
bhoom  ;  content  with  having  placed  a  Buddhist 
dynasty  on  the  throne,  and  with  having  spread  a 
thin  crust  of  monotheism  over  the  surface  of  society. 
The  common  people  were  also  satisfied  ;  they  were 
let  alone.  They  naturally  returned  to  the  bloody 
worship  of  their  fathers,  wliich  the  preceding  Aryans 


198  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

had  tried  to  trample  out,  and  Lower  Bengal  soon 
exhibited  the  inevitable  consequence  of  forcing  a 
higher  degree  of  spiritualism  upon  a  nation  than 
it  is  able  to  bear ;  to  wit,  an  untold  depth  of  super- 
stition varnished  over  with  a  fair,  deceitful  gloss. 
Such  a  state  of  affairs  could  not  be  permanent  :  as 
Buddhism  retired  from  public  life  to  its  monastic  soli- 
tudes, Brahmanism  crept  back  into  its  place,  and  at 
last  drove  it  forth  altogether.  But  of  Brahmanism 
there  are  always  two  sides,  the  spiritual  and  the 
idolatrous  ;  the  former  represented  by  the  merciful 
worship  of  Vishnu,  the  latter  by  the  bloody  rites 
of  Siva,  the*  aboriginal  Rudra.  Brahmanism  had 
learned  wisdom  in  disgrace ;  it  had  learned  that 
nowhere,  not  even  in  Bengal,  can  a  dynasty  be 
lasting  which  sets  its  face  against  the  people.  In- 
stead, therefore,  of  again  introducing  their  old 
esoteric  religion,  w^ith  its  sublime  dogmas  and  un- 
bloody sacrifices  of  fruits,  milk,  and  oil,  the  Brahmans 
threw  themselves  upon  the  people,  and  preached 
the  popular  side  of  their  creed  ;  with  the  popular 
deity  Siva  or  Rudra  at  its  head,  to  be  worshipped 
according  to  the  popular  bloody  rites.  This  was 
precisely  the  religion  for  the  semi-aboriginal  popu- 
lation of  Lower  Bengal.  The  mass  of  superstition 
that  had  always  existed,  and  still  everywhere  exists, 
in  Buddhist  countries,  upheaved,  splintering  into  a 
thousand  fragments  the  thin  crust  of  monotheism 
that  had  concealed  it.  From  that  period  modern 
Hinduism  dates,  with  its  top  reaching  even  to  the 
heavens,   and    its  feet  descending  into   the  lowest 


SIVA-WORSHIP  AXD  IIIXDUISM. 


199 


depths  of  man's  depraved  heart.  Only  in  Lower 
Bengal  is  its  baser  form  a  homogeneous  and  strictly 
national  religion  ;  for  only  in  Lower  Bengal  did  the 
Brahmans,  deliberately  rejecting  the  spiritual  side 
of  the  Sanskrit  faith,  identify  themselves  with  the 
semi-aboriginal  superstitions  of  the  masses.  Go 
where  he  chooses,  the  Hindu  of  the  Lower  Valley 
is  known  by  his  gross  materialism  and  bloody  rites. 
Native  scholars,  who  look  only  to  the  facts  without 
troublincr  themselves  with  the  reasons,  are  astonished 
that  the  Lower  Provinces,  the  refu^-e  of  monotheism 
a  thousand  years  ago,  should  now  be  the  focus  of 
idolatry.  '  Bengal,'  says  an  eminent  antiquarian, 
himself  a  native  of  the  Southern  Valley,  '  long  in- 
fluenced by  Buddhism,  has  lapsed  into  Brahmanism 
with  a  vengeance.  The  Bengali  carries  idolatry 
wherever  he  goes.  Alexander  left  cities  to  mark 
the  track  of  his  conquests  ;  the  Bengali  leaves  idols 
to  mark  the  tide  of  his  peregrinations.  It  is  English 
enterprise  to  set  up  schools  and  found  hospitals ;  it  is 
Bengali  enterprise  to  erect  temples  and  put  up  idols. 
The  Enoflishman  teaches  the  Bencrali  to  bridge  rivers 
and  open  railroads;  the  Bengali  teaches  hook-swing- 
ing to  the  Santal,*^  and  idol-making  to  the  north- 
country  Hindu.  The  Bengali  who  set  up  the  image 
of  Durga*  (the  wife  of  the  aboriginal  deity  Siva)  'at 
Cawnpore,  is  said  to  hav^e  brought  artisans  from  Cal- 
cutta, because  in  the  north  country  they  knew  not  how 
to  make  an  idol  riding  upon  a  lion  with  ten  arms.'*'^ 

^^  The  Chanak-piija,  now  made  a  criminal  ofTcncc. 

*3  Englishman's  VVeek/y  yonrnal,  vol.  iv.  No.  32.     4to,  Calculla. 


200  riJE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

Caste  is  unknown  amone  the  Santals.  Each  of 
the  seven  children  of  our  first  parents  founded  a 
tribe  ;  and,  generally  speaking,  where  the  Santals 
are  free  from  Hinduizing  influences,  the  number  of 
tribes  remains  unaltered  to  this  day.  The  de- 
scendants of  the  first-born  son  are  the  Nij-kasda- 
had  ;  of  the  second-born,  Nij-murmu-had  ;  of  the 
third-born,  Nij-saran-had  ;  of  the  fourth-born,  Nij- 
hasdi-had  ;  of  the  fifth-born,  Nij-marudi-had,  whom 
the  first  parents  appointed  to  offer  sacrifice  to  the 
Great  Mountain  ;  of  the  sixth-born,  Nij-kesku-had  ; 
of  the  seventh-born,  Nij-tadu-had.  The  prefix  Nij 
appears  to  signify  '  the  son  of,'  like  *  Mac'  or  '  Fitz,' 
and  is  dropped  in  ordinary  conversation.  Each  of 
these  tribes  is  complete  in  itself,  furnished  with  its 
own  leaders,  and  producing  classes  ;  but  two  of  the 
tribes  have  more  especially  devoted  themselves  to 
religion,  and  furnish  a  large  majority  of  the  priests. 
One  of  these  represents  the  state  religion,  founded 
on  the  family  basis,  and  administered  by  the  de- 
scendants of  the  fifth  son,  the  original  family  priest. 
Many  of  this  tribe  enjoy  little  grants  of  rent-free 
land  in  return  for  religious  services  at  public  festivals 
in  the  grove,  where  the  gods  of  the  hamlet  dwell 
together.  In  some  places,  particularly  in  the  north, 
the  descendants  of  the  second  son  (Nij-murmu-had) 
are  held  to  make  better  priests  than  those  of  the 
fifth  ;  but  it  is  noticeable  that  they  rarely  receive 
grants  of  land  and  have  to  support  themselves  by 
their  own  labour  or  the  liberality  of  their  devotees. 
They  are  for  the  most  part  prophets,  diviners,  and 


SANTA L  PRIESTS  AND  LEVITES.  201 

officiating  Levites  of  forest  or  other  shrines,  repre- 
senting demon-worship  ;  and  in  only  a  few  places 
do  they  take  the  place  of  the  fifth  tribe,  as  the 
hierarchy  of  the  national  system  of  religion  founded 
on  the  family.  In  the  north,  where  Hinduism  has 
made  the  greatest  inroads,  five  tribes  have  been 
added, — arising,  I  believe,  from  the  illegitimate  de- 
scendants of  Santal  women  by  Aryan  fathers.  They 
are  to  the  pure  Santals  what  the  mixed  castes  are 
to  the  pure  Aryans  ;  but  the  superior  intelligence, 
derived  from  their  fathers,  has  enabled  them  to 
obtain  a  much  better  position  among  their  abori- 
ginal kinsmen  than  the  mixed  castes  have  ever 
acquired  among  the  Aryan  conquerors  of  the  plains. 
The  subject  of  these  additional  five  tribes,  however, 
is  involved  in  much  obscurity,  and  this  view  of  their 
origin  is  rather  a  conjecture  than  a  deduction  from 
known  facts.  In  the  north,  the  Santals  have  gone 
so  near  to  Hinduism  as  to  assign  particular  occupa- 
tions to  four  of  the  tribes.  Thus  the  Kesku-had 
are  the  kings  ;  the  Murmu-had  are  the  priests  ;  the 
Saran-had  are  the  soldiers  ;  the  Marudi-had  are  the 
farmers  :  evidently  a  clumsy  imitation  of  the  fourfold 
Hindu  division  into  soldiers,  priests,  traders,  and 
artisans.  Besides  these  four  tribes,  the  northern 
Santals  have  eight  others,  to  whom  no  particular 
occupation  is  assigned. 

Notwithstanding  such  local  affectations  of  caste, 
the  cruel  inequalities  which  divide  man  from  man 
among  the  Hindus  of  the  plain  have  never  pene- 
trated tlie  hamlets  oi  the  mountaineers.     The  wliolc 


202  TTIE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

village  has  its  joys  and  sorrows  in  common.  It 
works  together,  hunts  together,  worships  together, 
and  on  festivals  eats  together.  Instead  of  each  tribe 
having  to  marry  within  itself,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Hindu  castes,  no  man  is  allowed  to  take  a  wife  of 
his  own  clan.  The  first  three  castes  of  the  Hindus 
are  in  reality  based  upon  difference  of  occupation  or 
social  rank  ;  and  the  marriage  of  a  knight's  daughter 
with  the  son  of  a  tradesman,  used  to  be  as  abhorrent 
to  the  Aryan  race  in  feudal  Europe,  as  it  ever  was 
to  the  same  race  in  agricultural  India.  The  fourth 
caste  of  the  Hindus  were  the  conquered  black  races, 
and  we  know  how  New  Orleans  society  would  have 
regarded  the  nuptials  of  a  planter's  daughter  with  a 
negro  slave.  The  classification  of  the  Santals  de- 
pended not  upon  social  rank  or  occupation,  but  upon 
the  family  basis.  Every  Santal  feels  he  is  the  kins- 
man of  the  whole  race ;  and  the  only  difference  he 
makes  between  his  own  clan  and  the  others  is,  that 
he  thinks  the  relationship  between  himself  and  his 
clanswomen  too  close  to  permit  of  intermarriage. 
The  children  belong  to  the  father's  clan,  and  the 
daughters,  upon  marriage,  give  up  their  ancient 
clan  and  its  gods  for  those  of  their  husbands. 

So  strong  is  the  family  feeling,  that  expulsion 
from  the  clan  is  the  only  form  of  banishment  known. 
Like  the  Roman  aqiice  et  ignis  interdictio,  to  which  it 
bears  a  strange  resemblance,  it  amounts  to  loss  of 
civil  rites,  for  other  clans  will  not  receive  the  out- 
cast ;  and  the  idea  of  the  ties  of  kindred  being 
destroyed  between  the  individual  and  the  race,  is 


EXPULSION  FROM  THE  RACE.  203 

insupportable  to  the  Santal.  The  terrors  of  the 
punishment,  however,  are  decreased  by  its  fre- 
quency, and  a  door  is  always  left  open  for  the 
return  of  the  offender  to  the  common  family.  He 
must  first  be  publicly  reconciled  with  the  people ; 
and  the  difficulty  of  effecting  the  reconcilation  de- 
pends upon  the  view  which  public  opinion  takes  of 
his  crime.  For  minor  offences,  twenty  gallons  of 
beer,^*  and  about  ten  shillings  to  buy  the  materials 
of  a  feast  for  his  clansmen,  suffice ;  in  more  heinous 
cases,  the  difficulty  of  reconciliation  is  so  great,  that 
the  unfortunate  man  yields  to  his  destiny,  and,  tak- 
ing with  him  his  bow  and  arrows,  departs  into  the 
jungle,  whence  he  never  returns.  A  woman,  once 
fallen,  cannot  regain  her  position. 

The  six  great  ceremonies  in  a  Santal's  history 
are  :  admission  into  the  family ;  admission  into  the 
tribe ;  admission  into  the  race  ;  union  of  his  c^wn 
tribe  with  another  by  marriage  ;  formal  dismission 
from  the  living  race  by  incremation  ;  lastly,  re-union 
with  the  departed  fathers.  The  admission  into  the 
family,  like  the  worship  of  the  household  god,  is  a 
secret  rite,  and  differs  in  different  localities.  One 
form  of  it  consists  in  the  father  repeating  to  himself 
the  name  of  the  ancestral  deity,  and  putting  his 
hand  on  the  child's  head  as  an  acknowledcrment 
that  it  is  his  own.  The  admission  into  the  tribe  is 
a  more  public  ceremony,  called  naytha,  and  takes 
place  three  days  after  the  birth,  if  a  girl ;  five  days 
after  the  birth,  if  a  boy.      By  this  time  the  Santal 

^'   Rice  beer,  worth  from  id.  to  3d.  a  gallon,  according;  to  its  strenglli. 


2  04  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

mother  is  able  to  go  about  her  work  again.  Great 
pots  of  beer  are  brewed,  the  clansmen  on  both  sides 
of  the  house  are  invited  ;  but  as  the  Santals  hold  a 
family  in  which  a  birth  has  taken  place  unclean, 
none  will  eat  or  drink  with  it  until  the  ceremonies 
of  purification  have  been  performed.  The  child's 
head  is  shaved.  The  clansmen  stand  round  and 
sip  water  mingled  with  a  bitter  vegetable  juice,"*'^  in 
token  of  their  commiseration  for  their  temporarily 
outcast  relatives.  The  father  then  solemnly  names 
the  child,  if  a  boy,  after  his  own  father;  if  a  girl, 
after  his  wife's  mother ;  and  the  midwife,  immedi- 
ately on  hearing  the  word,  takes  rice  and  water, 
and,  going  round  the  circle  of  relatives,  fillips  a 
few  drops  on  the  breast  of  each  visitor,  calling  out 
the  child's  name.  The  family,  including  the  new- 
born babe,  is  then  held  to  be  re-admitted  into  the 
claa  ;  and  the  ceremony  ends  w^ith  the  kinsmen  of 
both  father  and  mother  sitting  down  to  huge  earthen 
pitchers  of  beer,  to  which  a  feast  in  rich  households 
is  added. 

The  admission  into  the  race  takes  place  about 
the  fifth  year.  Beer  is  brewed  ;  the  friends  of  the 
family,  whatever  may  be  their  clan,  are  invited  ;  and 
the  child  is  marked  on  his  right  arm  with  the  San- 
tal  spots.  The  number  of  these  spots  varies,  but 
it  is  always  an  uneven  one  ;  and  any  man  dying 
without  them  becomes  an  object  for  the  wrath  of 
the  Santal  gods.  He  lies  age  after  age,  with  snakes 
burrowing  in  his  breast,  an  outcast  from  the  ghostly 

**  Niin. 


SANTAL   WEDDINGS.  205 

world,  amid  which  the  Santal  Hves,  and  moves,  and 
has  his  being. 

The  union  of  his  own  tribe  with  another  by 
marriage^^  is  the  most  important  ceremony  in  a 
Santal's  life.  It  takes  place  later  than  among  the 
Hindus,  and  the  Santal  speaks  with  abhorrence  of 
the  practice  of  bringing  together  mere  children, 
years  before  the  espousals  can  be  consummated. 
As  a  rule,  a  Santal  lad  marries  about  his  sixteenth 
or  seventeenth  year ;  girls  are  generally  provided 
for  at  fifteen.  These  ages  may  appear  premature 
to  nations  with  whom  the  luxuries  of  civilisation 
have  become  necessaries  of  life ;  but  in  the  tropical 
forest,  a  youth  of  sixteen  or  seventeen  is  as  able 
to  provide  for  a  family  as  ever  he  will  be  ;  and  a 
leaf  hut,  with  a  few  earthen  or  brazen  pots,  is  all 
the  establishment  a  Santal  young  lady  expects. 
One  generation  after  another  settles  down  early  to 
wedded  life ;  nor  is  a  custom  to  be  blamed  which 
renders  unchastity  almost  unknown,  and  provides  a 
numerous  progeny  of  grandchildren  to  care  for  the 
aged.  I  have  never,  except  in  the  famine  of  1866, 
met  a  beggar  in  a  Santal  village. 

As  the  Santals  have  attained  an  age  of  discre- 
tion before  they  marry,  a  freedom  of  selection  is 
allowed  to  them,  wholly  unknown  among  the  Hin- 
dus. The  formal  proceedings  begin  by  the  lad's 
father  sending  a  wedding  messenger  i^rai  bari)  to 
the  girl's  father,  who  receives  the  proffer  in  silence, 
and,  after  advising  with  his  wife,  replies  :  '  Let  the 

.    *'■'  Clihatiar. 


2o6  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

youth  and  the  maiden  meet,  then  these  things  may 
be  talked  over.'  An  interview  is  arranged  at  a 
neighbouring  fair  ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  day,  if  the 
young  people  are  pleased  with  each  other,  the  lad's 
father  buys  a  trifling  present  for  the  girl,  who  pro- 
strates herself  before  him  as  a  public  acknowledg- 
ment that  she  is  willing  to  be  his  daughter-in-law. 
The  girl's  clansmen  then  visit  the  lad's  village, 
where  the  future  husband  salutes  them  with  a  kiss, 
taking  each  of  them  on  his  knees  for  a  minute,*^  and 
giving  the  brethren  a  small  present  of  money,  but 
to  the  girl's  father  a  turban  and  the  customary  cot- 
ton dress.  The  lad's  clansmen  afterwards  visit  the 
house  of  the  girl's  father.  The  bride-elect  salutes 
them,  takes  each  on  her  knee,^^  and  makes  a  small 
present  precisely  as  the  lad  had  done  to  her  people. 
The  clans  by  these  ceremonies  having  formally 
declared  their  amity  and  goodwill,  the  lad's  father 
sends  a  present  of  an  uneven  number  of  rupees 
by  the  wedding  messenger  to  the  girl's  parents,  the 
acceptance  of  which  legally  transfers  the  girl  to  the 
new  clan.  Preparations  for  the  actual  wedding 
then  begin.  The  bride's  clansmen  erect  a  tem- 
porary shed  in  their  village,  and  soon  afterwards  the 
bridegroom,  attended  by  his  kindred,  comes  into 
the  little  town,  and  all  are  solemnly  received  in  the 
single  street  {kul-ahi,  literally  the  Divider  of  the 
Families)  by  the  two  village  beadles,  whose  duty 

■•^  The  Rev.  E.  L.  Puscley,  of  the  Rajmahal  country,  is  my  autho- 
rity for  this  curious  part  of  the  ceremony. 
*8  /./. 


SANTAL   WEDDINGS.  207 

it  is  to  see  after  the  youth  of  the  hamlet.  The 
groomsmen  then  proceed  to  the  shed,  in  which 
they  erect  a  bough  of  the  wine-giving  tree/^  and 
place  under  it  a  pot  of  rice,  husked  by  the  girl's 
family  in  a  particular  manner,  steeped  in  water  and 
coloured  with  a  red  dye.  The  purification  of  the 
bridegroom  follows.  He  is  bathed,  his  hair  dressed, 
the  old  clothes  are  taken  from  him,  and  new  ones 
stained  with  vermilion  put  on  by  the  girl's  clans- 
women.  On  the  fifth  day,  the  bridegroom,  arrayed 
in  his  new  clothes,  is  carried  on  men's  shoulders  to 
the  bride's  house.  Five  of  his  groomsmen  place 
the  bride  in  a  large  basket,  and  bring  forth  her 
younger  brother,  who  receives  the  bridegroom  as 
her  proxy.  Salutations  having  been  interchanged, 
the  bride  is  carried  out  in  her  basket  :  the  young 
couple  sprinkle  one  another  with  water  from  the 
opposite  sides  of  a  cloth  that  has  been  put  between 
them ;  the  bridegroom  calls  out  the  name  of  a  god, 
and  the  people  tell  him  to  lift  the  girl  out  of  the 
basket,  for  she  is  his  wife.  The  clansmen  then 
unite  the  clothes  of  the  bride  and  bridecrroom,  after 
which  the  girl's  clanswomen  bring  burning  charcoal, 
pound  it  with  the  household  pestle'"''  in  token  of  the 
dissolution  of  old  family  ties,  and  extinguish  it  with 
water  to  signify  the  final  separation  of  the  bride 
from  her  clan. 

Nothing  can  be  more  picturesque  than  the  torch- 
light procession  home.  The  party  first  assemble  at 
the  leafy  shed  before  mentioned,  to  inspect  the  pot 

*«  The  Miihita.  «»  The  tok,  a  stick  of  tlic  okH  tree. 


2o8  TIU:  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

of  rice  and  vermilion-coloured  water.  If  the  grain 
has  germinated  abundantly,  there  will  be  many 
children ;  if  sparingly,  there  will  be  few ;  and  if 
the  seeds,  instead  of  germinating,  have  rotted,  the 
marriage  is  an  ill-omened  one.  The  procession 
then  moves  forward  with  drums  and  fifes,  the 
torches  blazing  luridly  under  the  forest  trees,  and 
startling  many  a  bird,  which  whirs  screaming  into 
the  darkness.  As  it  draws  near  to  the  bridegroom's 
village,  the  virgins  ^^  come  forth  about  two  miles 
to  welcome  the  bride,  and  conduct  her  with  song 
and  music  to  the  door  of  her  new  home. 

The  Santals  remain  faithful  to  one  wife.  Second 
marriages  are  not  unknown,  but  they  seldom  take 
place,  except  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  an  heir, 
and  a  Santal  always  honours  the  wife  of  his  youth 
as  the  head  of  his  house.  Divorce  is  rare,  and  can 
only  be  effected  with  the  consent  of  the  husband's 
clansmen.  Five  of  the  nearest  relatives  are  called 
together,  beer  is  brewed,  and  the  party  who  desires 
the  separation  explains  his  or  her  wrongs.  The 
relatives,  after  hearing  the  rejoinder,  decide.  In 
the  event  of  the  divorce  being  granted,  the  party 
seeking  it  solemnly  tears  up  a  leaf  before  the  little 
court. 

The  fifth  great  ceremony  in  a  Santal's  history  is 
his  formal  dismission  from  the  race.  When  a  San- 
tal lies  a-dying,  the  ojha,  half  necromancer  and  half 
doctor,  rubs  oil  on  a  leaf  to  discover  what  witch  or 
demon  has  *  eaten '  the  sick  man.     As  soon  as  the 

*i  The  tiiri  k'lri. 


SA.YTAL  FUXERAL  RITES.  209 

vital  spark  quits  the  body,  the  corpse  is  anointed 
with  oil  tinged  with  red  herbs,  and  laid  decently 
out  in  new  white  clothes  upon  the  bed.  The  clans- 
men join  together  to  buy  two  little  brazen  vessels — 
one  for  rice,  the  other  for  water — which  they  place 
upon  the  couch  along  with  a  few  rupees,  to  enable 
their  friend  to  appease  the  demons  on  the  threshold 
of  the  shadowy  world.  When  the  funeral  pile  is 
ready,  these  presents  are  removed.  Five  clans- 
men bear  out  the  corpse,  carrying  it  three  times 
round  the  pile,  and  then  lay  it  gently  down  upon 
the  top.  A  cock^^  is  nailed  through  the  neck  by  a 
wooden  pin,  to  a  corner  of  the  pile  or  to  a  neigh- 
bouring tree.  The  next  of  kin  prepares  a  torch  of 
grass  bound  with  thread  from  his  own  clothes,  and 
after  walking  three  times  round  the  pile  in  silence, 
touches  the  mouth  of  the  deceased  with  the  brand. 
This  he  does  with  averted  face.  The  friends  and 
kindred  then  close  in,  and,  all  facing  the  south,  set 
fire  to  the  pile.  When  the  body  is  nearly  con- 
sumed, the  clansmen  extinguish  the  fire,  and  the 
nearest  relative  breaks  off  three  fragments  from 
the  half-calcined  skull,  washes  them  in  new  milk 
coloured  with  red  herbs,  and  places  them  in  a  small 
earthen  vessel. 

Of  a  future  life  of  blessedness  the  Santal  has  no 
idea.  His  strong  natural  sense  of  justice  teaches 
him  that  the  unrighteous  and  prosperous  man  upon 

*2  The  Cock  is  the  animal  generally  sacrificed  by  the  aboriginal 
races  of  Ceylon  in  cases  of  mortal  sickness. — Sir  E.  Tenncnt's  Ceylon, 
i.  541,  etc.,  3(1  ed. 

VOL.   I.  O 


2IO  rilE  ANNALS  Of  RURAL  BENGAL. 

earth  will  meet  with  retribution  after  death  ;  but  his 
future  life  is  a  life  of  punishment  for  the  wicked, 
without  any  compensating  rewards  for  the  good. 
The  absence  of  abstract  nouns  renders  it  difficult 
to  get  at  his  real  views  on  these  subjects ;  but  the 
most  intelligent  I  have  met,  seemed  to  think  that 
uncharitable  men  and  childless  women  were  eaten 
eternally  by  worms  and  snakes,  while  good  men 
entered  into  fruit-bearing  trees.  The  common  San- 
tal's  ideas  are  much  looser.  He  believes  that  ghosts 
and  demons  surround  him,  who  will  punish  him  in 
the  body  unless  he  appease  them ;  but  who  these 
ghosts  may  be  he  knows  not,  and  after  death  all  is 
a  blank. 

One  ceremony,  a  very  beautiful  one,  remains — 
the  re-union  of  the  dead  with  the  fathers.  The 
next  of  kin,  taking  a  bag  of  rice  and  the  little 
earthen  pot  with  the  three  fragments  of  the  skull, 
starts  off  alone  to  the  sacred  river.  Arrived  at  its 
bank,  he  places  the  three  fragments  of  skull  on  his 
own  head,  and  entering  the  stream,  dips  completely 
under  the  water,  at  the  same  time  inclining  forwards, 
so  that  the  three  fragments  fall  into  the  current,  and 
are  carried  down,  thus  '  uniting  the  dead  with  the 
fathers.' 

The  Santals  afford  a  striking  proof  of  how  a 
race  takes  its  character  from  the  country  in  which 
it  lives.  Those  who  have  studied  them  only  in 
the  undulating  southern  country  near  the  sea,  call 
them  a  purely  agricultural  nation  ;  the  missionaries 
who  have  preached   to   them   in   the   mountainous 


THE   WEALTH-GIVING  JUNGLE.  211 

jungles  look  upon  them  as  a  tribe  of  fishers  and 
hunters ;  in  the  highlands  of  Beerbhoom,  they 
appear  as  a  people  with  no  particular  occupation, 
living  as  best  they  can  in  a  sterile  country  by 
breeding  buffaloes,  cultivating  patches  of  Indian 
corn,  and  eking  out  a  precarious  semi-agricultural 
semi  -  pastoral  existence  by  the  products  of  the 
forest.  The  jungle,  indeed,  is  their  unfailing  friend. 
It  supplies  them  with  everything  that  the  lowland 
Hindus  have  not.  Noble  timber,  brilliant  dyes, 
gums,  bees'  wax,  vegetable  drugs,  charms,  charcoal, 
and  the  skins  of  wild  animals — a  little  world  of 
barbaric  wealth,  to  be  had  for  the  takinor.  Throuorh- 
out  the  cold  weather,  long  lines  of  their  buffalo  carts 
— the  wheels  made  from  a  single  slice  of  Sal  trunk 
— are  to  be  seen  toilinor  and  creakinor  towards  the 
fairs  of  lowland  Beerbhoom.  At  night  the  Santal 
is  at  no  loss  for  a  tent ;  he  looses  his  buffaloes  on 
the  margin  of  some  wayside  tank,  creeps  under  his 
cart,  lights  a  fire  at  one  end,  draws  up  a  second 
cart  with  its  solid  wheel  against  the  other,  and  after 
a  heavy  supper,  sings  himself  to  sleep. 

As  a  huntsman,  he  is  alike  skilful  and  intrepid. 
Me  never  stirs  without  his  bow  and  arrows.  The 
bow  consists  of  a  strong  mountain  bamxboo  which 
no  Hindu  lowlander  can  bend.  His  arrows  are  of 
two  kinds  :  heavy,  sharp  ones  for  the  larger  kind 
of  game  ;  and  light  ones,  with  a  broad  knob  at  the 
point,  for  small  birds.  The  difficulty  of  shooting 
true  with  the  latter  can  only  be  appreciated  by 
those  who  have  tried  it ;   but  few   English  sports- 


2  12  rirE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

men,  provided  with  the  latest  improvement  in  fire- 
arms, can  show  a  better  bag  of  small  game  from 
the  jungle  than  the  Santal,  equipped  solely  with  his 
rude  weapon.  Fowling,  however,  he  only  resorts 
to  in  order  to  meet  his  immediate  necessities.  I 
have  seen  a  wayside  encampment  of  Santals,  after 
toiling  along  the  road  the  whole  day,  supply  them- 
selves with  water-birds  from  the  tank  at  which  they 
drew  up  for  the  night,  in  less  time  than  a  Hindu 
would  take  to  purify  himself,  or  a  Mussulman 
traveller  to  say  his  prayers. 

The  tiger  or  leopard  hunt  is  at  once  his  pastime 
and  his  profit.  If  he  looks  to  the  gain,  he  keeps 
the  existence  of  the  animal  a  secret  from  every  one, 
except  the  fortunate  kinsman  who  possesses  a  gun, 
and  stealthily  watches  what  drinking-place  the  wild 
beast  frequents.  This  ascertained,  the  two  relatives 
take  up  their  position  in  an  adjoining  tree,  and 
patiently  wait,  sometimes  for  days,  the  coming  of 
their  prey.  The  long-barrelled  matchlock,  loaded 
with  a  charge  of  coarse,  slow -burning  powder, 
enough  to  serve  for  a  small  piece  of  ordnance,  and 
rammed  down  with  pebbles  and  scraps  of  iron,  is 
placed  in  position  ;  the  smouldering  rope,  which 
serves  as  tinder,  is  blown  into  a  glow  ;  and  if  the 
unconscious  animal  takes  a  long  enough  draught 
for  all  these  performances  to  be  gone  through,  that 
drink  is  his  last  one.  The  Santal  never  fires  on 
mere  chance.  The  pj-cstige  of  his  matchlock,  pos- 
sibly the  only  one  within  thirty  miles,  must  not  be 
lightly  risked  ;  and  his  powder,  coarse  as  it  is,  has 


SANTA L  SPORT.  213 

to  be  brought  from  the  Hindu  village  on  the  plains, 
which  he  dreads  to  approach.  If  the  hunt  be  for 
pastime,  the  Santal  prefers  driving  a  tiger  to  shooting 
it.  An  Englishman  has  only  to  give  out  that  he 
will  beat  a  certain  jungle,  and  hundreds  of  Santals, 
headed  by  their  drummers  and  fife-players,  seem  to 
rise  out  of  the  ground.  I  have  seen  five  hundred 
collected  on  two  days'  notice.  The  jungle  was 
divided  into  circles,  in  the  centre  of  each  of  which 
the  Santals  set  up  high  wooden  erections,^''  some- 
thing like  pulpits,  but  covered  with  foliage,  to  look 
like  trees,  for  the  English  hunters.  The  high- 
landers,  armed  with  bows  and  arrows,  surrounded 
the  circumference  in  silence  ;  and  after  ascertaining 
by  preconcerted  cries,  not  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  call  of  wild  birds,  that  this  manoeuvre  was 
accomplished,  they  raised  a  universal  yell,  accom- 
panied by  countless  drums,  fifes,  and  cymbals.  As 
they  draw  closer  to  the  centre  the  sport  becomes 
exciting,  the  beaters  displaying  the  most  admirable 
courage  and  reliance  on  one  another  whenever  the 
game  attempts  to  break,  and  striking  down  all  the 
small  fry  they  fall  in  with.  The  Englishmen  on 
the  erections  in  the  middle  refrain  from  firing  at 
inferior  animals,  lest  the  report  should  terrify  the 
greater  ones,  that  may  be  behind,  into  breaking 
through  the  gradually  contracting  circle.  As  tigers 
and  leopards  are  now  scarce,  it  sometimes  happens 
that  the  gentlemen  in  the  pulpits,  with  their  well- 

'•'  Afaichans,  from  the  same  root  as  tlic  Greek  makiiinf,  or  our 
own  viachlne. 


214  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

appointed  batteries,  do  not  get  a  single  shot,  while 
the  beaters  are  laden  with  booty,  and  form  them- 
selves into  a  triumphant  procession,  each  having  a 
hare  or  a  bird,  or  at  least  a  good-sized  snake,  to 
show  for  his  day's  work. 

That  the  Santal  was  at  no  distant  period  an 
agriculturist,  his  language  and  festivals  clearly  prove. 
When  driven  from  the  open  lowlands,  he  wrings  an 
existence  from  the  forest ;  but  he  carries  with  him 
a  taste  for  agriculture,  and  no  mean  skill  in  its 
details.  The  agriculture  of  the  Hindu  lowlanders 
has  a  stately  language  derived  from  the  Sanskrit, 
not  a  word  of  which  is  to  be  found  in  Santali ;  but  it 
has  also  a  humble,  unwritten  speech  current  among 
the  poorer  cultivators,  who  have  adopted  many  of 
their  terms  from  the  aborigines.  The  Santal  owes 
nothing  of  his  skill  in  husbandry  to  the  Aryan. 
He  has  crops  of  his  own,^^  implements  of  his  own, 
his  own  system  of  cultivation,  and  an  abundant 
vocabulary  of  rural  life,  not  one  word  of  which  he 
has  borrowed  from  the  superior  race  who  ousted 
him  from  his  heritage  in  the  valley.  Upon  low- 
lying  ground  near  the  sea  he  cultivates  rice  as 
successfully  as  his  Hindu  neighbours,  and  if  not 
oppressed    by   them,    becomes   a   substantial    man. 

5*  The  staple  food  of  the  Bcerbhoom  highlanders  is  Indian  corn 
(Santali,  janora),  and  three  small  inferior  grains  called  janhe,  gundoh, 
and  iri,  which  I  have  not  seen  cultivated  by  the  lowland  Hindus. 
The  Beerbhoom  Santal  looks  upon  rice,  the  universal  food  of  the 
lowlanders,  as  a  rare  luxury  ;  but  he  successfully  rears  the  small  hardy 
barley  (bajra)  which  is  common  throughout  Bengal.  In  the  southern 
country,  the  word  jatihe  is  used  to  designate  a  wild  grass. 


SANTA L  AGRICULTURE.  215 

As  the  lowland  population  advances,  however,  he 
recedes,  so  that  few  large  villages  and  no  Santal 
cities  grow  up.  The  missionaries  everywhere  re- 
mark the  Santal's  '  decided  preference  for  the  new 
and  jungly  parts  of  the  country.'  Rice,  the  most 
bountiful  gift  of  nature  to  man,  is  the  national  crop 
of  the  Santal  :  his  earliest  traditions  refer  to  it ; 
his  language  overflows  with  terms  to  express  its 
different  stages  \^^  and  even  in  the  forest  he  never 
wholly  loses  his  hereditary  skill  in  raising  it.  Each 
period  in  its  cultivation  is  marked  by  a  festival. 
The  Santal  rejoices  and  sacrifices  to  his  gods  when 
he  commits  the  seed  to  the  ground  (the  Ero-Sim 
festival)  ;  when  the  green  blade  has  sprouted  (the 
Harian  Sim) ;  when  the  ear  has  formed  (the  Horo) ; 
and  the  gathering  of  the  rice  crop  forms  the  occasion 
of  the  crowning  festival  of  the  year  ( Johorai).'*'' 

The  Santal  possesses  a  happy  disposition,  is 
hospitable  to  strangers,  and  sociable  to  a  fault 
among  his  own  people.  Every  occasion  is  seized 
upon  for  a  feast,  at  which  the  absence  of  luxuries 
is    compensated    for   by   abundance    of  game,  and 

"  The  Santal  has  names  of  his  own  for  every  stage  in  rice  cul- 
tivation, (i.)  The  generic  name  for  rice:  Bengali,  d/taii ;  Santali, 
lioro.  (2.)  The  seed  :  Bengali,  l>ij  or  bich ;  Santali,  itu.  (3.)  Cut 
rice  :  Bengali,  kata ;  Santali,  ir j  hence  irate,  to  reap.  (4.)  Rice- 
straw  :  Bengali,  biclialij  Santali,  bassup.  (5.)  Threshed  rice  :  Ben- 
gali, ?naraj  Santali,  en-mcn  or  ma-cnvicn.  (6.)  Iluskcd  rice  : 
Bengali,  chal,  from  the  same  root  as  the  Santali  chaoli,  from  chalatc, 
to  sift.  (7.)  Boiled  rice  :  Bengali,  bhat ;  Santali,  dakku.  (8.)  Fer- 
mented rice  liquor  :  Bengali,  mad  or  pachwai ;  Santali,  handia. 
I  have  taken  down  these  words  as  pronounced  by  Dlnila  Maji  and 
Chandra  Maji,  two  Santal  constables  in  the  Bccrbhoom  police. 

*'*  For  a  list  of  Santal  festivals,  see  Appendix  I. 


2i6  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

liquor  made  from  fermented  rice.  In  the  southern 
country  each  house  has  its  *  stranger's  seat '  outside 
the  door,  to  which  the  traveller,  whatever  be  his 
creed  or  colour,  is  courteously  invited  as  soon  as 
he  enters  the  village.  The  Santal  has  a  form  of 
salutation  of  his  own.  He  does  not  abase  himself 
to  the  ground  like  the  rural  Hindu,  but  gravely 
raises  his  hands  to  his  forehead,  and  then  stretches 
them  out  towards  the  stranger,  till  the  palms  touch 
each  other."  He  keeps  his  respect  chiefly  for  the 
aged  among  his  own  people  ;  and  in  dealings  with 
outsiders,  while  courteous  and  hospitable,  he  is  at 
the  same  time  firm  and  free  from  crinmne.  Un- 
like  the  Hindu,  he  never  thinks  of  making  money 
by  a  stranger,  scrupulously  avoids  all  topics  of 
business,  and  feels  pained  if  payment  is  pressed 
upon  him  for  the  milk  and  fruits  which  his  wife 
brings  out.  When  he  is  at  last  prevailed  upon  to 
enter  upon  business  matters,  his  dealings  are  off- 
hand ;  he  names  the  true  price  at  first,  which  a 
lowlander  never  does,  and  politely  waives  all  dis- 
cussion or  beating  down.  He  would  much  rather 
that  strangers  did  not  come  to  his  village ;  but 
when  they  do  come,  he  treats  them  as  honoured 
guests.  He  would  in  a  still  greater  degree  prefer 
to  have  no  dealings  with  his  guests  ;  but  when  his 
guests  introduce  the  subject,  he  deals  with  them 
as  honestly  as  he  would  with  his  own  people. 

The  village  government  is   purely  patriarchal. 
Each  hamlet  has  an  original  founder  (the  Manjhi- 

"^  Johar-ete. 


THEIR   VILLAGE  GOVERNMENT.  217 

Hanan),  who  is  regarded  as  the  father  of  the  com- 
munity. He  receives  divine  honours  in  the  sacred 
grove,  and  transmits  his  authority  to  his  descendants. 
The  head-man  for  the  time  being  (Manjhi)  bears 
the  undisputed  sway  which  belongs  to  a  hereditary 
governor ;  but  he  interferes  only  on  great  occasions, 
and  leaves  the  details  to  his  deputy  (Paramanik). 
A  missionary  who  has  lived  for  some  years  among 
the  Santals  assures  me  that  he  has  never  seen  an 
abuse  of  power  by  these  authorities  ;  and  the  chance 
traveller  cannot  help  remarking  the  facility  with 
which  he  can  get  food,  guides,  means  of  transport, 
in  short,  everything,  by  a  word  from  the  head-man. 
As  the  adults  of  the  village  have  their  head-man 
and  his  deputy,  so  also  have  the  children.  The 
juvenile  community  are  strictly  controlled  by  their 
own  officers  (the  Jog-manjhi  and  Jog-paramanik), 
whose  superintendence  continues  till  the  youth  or 
maiden  enters  on  the  responsibilities  of  married  life, 
A  watchman  completes  the  list  of  village  officers, 
but  among  the  pure  Santals  crime  and  criminal 
officers  are  almost  unknown.''"" 

The  Santal  treats  the  female  members  of  his 
family  with  respect,  allows  them  to  join  in  festivals, 
and  only  marks  his  superiority  by  finishing  his 
meal   before   his   wife  beirins.      The   Santal  woman 

"""  For  some  years  the  Santal  district  adjoining  Becrbhooni  was 
administered  on  what  was  termed  the  '  No-Pohce  System.'  The 
Commissioner  (Mr.  G.  W.  Yule)  speaks  highly  of  it  in  his  Civil  and 
Criminal  Report  to  Government  for  1858  (pp.  4,  5,  and  6),  and  the 
assistant  Commissioners  who  had  to  carry  out  its  practical  details 
were  of  one  opinion  with  regard  to  its  success. 


2i8  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

is  modest,  but  frank.  Ignorant  of  the  shrinking 
squeamishness  of  the  Hindu  female,  she  converses 
intelHgently  with  strangers,  and  performs  the  rites  of 
hospitahty  to  her  husband's  guests.  Her  dance  is 
slow  and  decorous.  All  the  women  join  hands,  form 
themselves  into  an  arc  of  a  circle,  and  advance  and 
retire  towards  the  centre,  where  the  musicians  are 
placed,  at  the  same  time  moving  slightly  towards 
the  right,  so  as  to  complete  the  circle  in  about  an 
hour. 

The  Santals  live  as  much  apart  as  possible  from 
the  Hindus.  In  some  sequestered  spot  among  the 
hills  a  field  of  paddy  makes  its  appearance,  and 
before  the  sportsman  is  aware,  he  comes  upon  a 
Santal  village.  The  only  Hindu  they  tolerate 
among  them  is  a  blacksmith,  one  of  whom  is  at- 
tached to  each  village,  and  whose  posterity  in  process 
of  time  become  naturalized  Santals.  These  men  do 
all  the  working  in  iron  for  the  hamlet,  and  fashion 
the  armlets  and  other  rude  jewellery  in  which  the 
Santal  matron  delights.  In  some  places  a  small 
community  of  basket-weavers,  a  caste  which  forms 
the  lowest  extremity  of  Hindu  society,  or  rather 
occupies  a  neutral  ground  of  its  own  between  the 
acknowledged  Hindus  and  the  aborigines,  is  per- 
mitted to  setde  on  the  outskirts  of  the  Santal  village  ; 
but  these  also  soon  become  naturalized,  and  lose  the 
diluted  strain  of  Aryan  blood  they  originally  pos- 
sessed. The  hill-men  are  so  simple-minded,  that 
dealing  with  them  is  very  profitable  to  the  acute 
lowlander,  who  will  pay  large  bribes  to  any  person 


THE  Y  APPEAR  IN  A  NE  W  LIGHT.  2 1 9 

whose  influence  can  secure  for  him  a  footing  among 
them.  Under  the  protection  of  the  village  head,  a 
Hindu  shopkeeper  or  usurer  sometimes  finds  his 
way  into  the  Santals'  retreats ;  and  from  that  day, 
honesty,  peace,  and  prosperity  depart  from  the 
hamlet. 

Until  1790,  the  Santals  were  the  pests  of  the 
adjacent  lowlands,  and  their  unchecked  inroads 
formed  Lord  Cornwallis'  chief  reason  for  assuming 
the  direct  administration  of  Beerbhoom.  Every 
winter,  as  soon  as  they  had  gathered  in  the  rice 
crop  and  celebrated  their  harvest-home,  the  whole 
nation  moved  down  upon  the  plains,  hunting  in  the 
forests  and  plundering  the  open  country  on  the  line 
of  march.  After  three  months'  excellent  sport  they 
returned  laden  with  booty  to  celebrate  the  Febru- 
ary festival  in  their  own  villages.  The  operations 
which  ultimately  penned  in  the  Santals  within  their 
own  territory  have  already  been  detailed.**  Gradually 
they  learned  to  be  content  with  the  chase  in  their  own 
forests  as  a  winter  pastime  instead  of  the  maraud- 
ing expeditions  upon  the  lowlands,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  century  they  appear  in  a  new  light — namely, 
as  valuable  neighbours  to  the  lowland  proprietors. 
The  permanent  settlement  for  the  land-tax  in  1 790 
resulted  in  a  general  extension  of  tillage,  and  the 
Santals  were  hired  to  rid  the  lowlands  of  the  wild 
beasts  which,  since  the  great  famine  of  1709,  had 
everywhere  encroached  upon  the  margin  of  cultiva- 
tion.      I)y   this   arrangement   they   combined   sport 

"■^  Ante,  Chap.  ii. 


2  20  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

with  profit  in  a  far  greater  degree  than  during 
their  freebooting  days,  and  gradually  were  induced 
to  accept  regular  employment  during  the  cold 
season  on  the  plains.  This  circumstance  was  so 
noticeable  as  to  find  its  way  into  the  London 
papers,  and  from  1792  a  new  era  in  the  history  of 
the  Santal  dates.''" 

From  that  year  he  appears  as  the  day-labourer 
of  lowland  Bengal.  We  have  seen  how  the  famines 
which  attended  the  dissolution  of  the  Mahommedan 
power  destroyed  the  equilibrium  between  the  popula- 
tion and  the  cultivable  land.  Whole  districts  had 
fallen  out  of  tillage,  and  our  first  system,  that  of 
annual  settlements  for  the  land-tax  which  squeezed 
the  industrious  and  improving  proprietor  to  make 
good  the  default  of  the  prodigal  and  Idle  one, 
rendered  operations  for  reclaiming  waste  land  on  a 
large  scale  out  of  the  question.  But  when,  in  1 790, 
the  British  Government  pledged  itself  not  to  lay  any 
further  tax  on  reclaimed  lands,  capital  quickly  found 
its  way  to  its  natural  destination  in  an  agricultural 
country — to  wit,  the  improvement  of  the  soil.  Every 
able-bodied  husbandman  was  welcome  to  as  many 
acres  as  he  could  cultivate.  A  large  surplus  of 
excellent  land  still  remained,  and  the  Santals, 
tempted  down  to  the  plains  by  unprecedented  wages 
or  easy  rents,  reclaimed  hundreds  of  rural  communes 
an.l  gave  a  new  land  tenure  to  Beerbhoom.  In 
the    northern    district    of    Rajmahal,    Santals    came 

59  <  Every  proprietor  is  collecting  husbandmen  from  the  hills  to  im- 
prove his  lowlands.' — Morning  Chronicle^  London,  23d  Oct.  1792.   O.C 


AS  RECLAIMERS  OF  WASTE  LAND.  221 

gradually  further  and  further  down  the  slopes  ;  and 
Government  wisely  won  thcni  into  peaceful  habits, 
by  grants  of  land,  along  with  '  exemption  from 
the  ordinary  course  of  law,  and  from  all  taxes.' 
'  Causes  not  affecting  the  public  peace,'  sa)s  an 
eye-witness  in  1809,  '  they  settle  among  themselves 
by  their  own  customs ;  but  they  are  bribed  by  an 
annual  pension  to  give  up  such  as  commit  violent 
outrages,  such  as  robbery  and  murder  ;  and  these  are 
punished  by  the  judge,  provided  an  assembly  of 
their  countrymen  finds  them  guilty.'^'' 

By  these  measures  did  the  British  Government 
change  invasion  into  immigration,  and  utilize  a  race 
that  had  been  from  time  immemorial  the  terror  of 
the  western  border  of  Bengal.  The  same  tribes 
that  had  turned  cultivated  fields  into  a  waste  during 
Mussulmans'  times,  were  destined  to  bring  back  the 
waste  into  cultivated  fields  under  Eno-lish  rule. 

The  Santals,  no  longer  thinned  by  the  losses 
of  the  winter  incursions,  soon  outgrew  their  sterile 
highlands,  and  about  the  year  1830  began  to 
migrate  northwards  in  large  bodies.  They  found 
the  northern  hills  inhabited  by  another  aboriginal 
race,  shorter,  darker,  fiercer,  and  more  hostile  to 
strangers  than  themselves ;  speaking  a  language 
they  did  not  understand,  and  ignorant  of  the  arts 
of  peace.  It  was  the  race  which,  after  defying  the 
Mahommcdan  arms  for  centuries,  was  won  over  in 
1780  by  the  truthful  and  gentle  policy  of  Augustus 

*"  Hist.  Antiq.,  etc.  of  Eastern  India,  from  the  Buchanan  iMSS. 
ii.  82.     Letters  of  Gurreeb  Doss,  with  replies,  8vo,  1794.      O.  C. 


222  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

Cleveland,  on  whose  tomb  the  following  words  are 
engraved :  '  Without  bloodshed  or  the  terrors  of 
authority,  employing  only  the  means  of  concilia- 
tion, confidence,  and  benevolence,  he  attempted  and 
accomplished  the  entire  subjection  of  the  lawless 
and  savage  inhabitants  of  the  Jungle-Terry  (forest 
frontier)  of  Rajmahal,  who  had  long  infested  the 
neighbouring  lands  by  their  predatory  incursions, 
inspired  them  with  a  taste  of  the  arts  of  civilised 
life,  and  attached  them  to  the  British  Government 
by  a  conquest  over  their  minds — the  most  permanent 
as  the  most  rational  mode  of  dominion."'^ 

The  more  civilised  Santal  immigrants,  finding 
no  rest  among  these  wild  tribes,  split  up  into  wan- 
dering bands,  and  would  probably  have  relapsed 
into  savage  life,  but  for  a  happy  stroke  of  policy 
in  1832.  The  Hindus  had  never  ceased  to  regard 
the  old  war-like  hill-men  as  dangerous  neighbours, 
and  the  fertile  slopes  remained  an  uninhabited  neutral 
ground.  In  1832  Government  determined  to  mark 
off  once  and  for  all  the  territory  of  the  highlanders 
by  a  ring  fence  of  pillars  built  of  solid  masonry. 
The  Hindus  immediately  pushed  forwards  the 
margin  of  cultivation  towards  the  boundary  ;  but 
the  intervening  valleys  between  the  hills  and  the 
pillars  remained  unoccupied,  the  wild  highlanders  not 
caring,  and  the  lowlanders  not  daring  to  till  them. 
For  this  fertile  country  a  population  was  wanted, 
and  the   Santals  were  discovered  to  be  the  very 

♦'i  '  By  order  of  the  Governor-General  and  Council  of  Bengal,  in 
lionour  of  his  character,  and  for  an  example  to  others/  1784. 


THE  SANTA LS  AS  COLONISTS.  223 

people  required.  Less  timid  than  the  Hindu,  they 
were  perfectly  able  to  hold  their  own  against  their 
hill  nei(]^hbours  ;  fond  of  a  semi-agricultural  life  in 
a  thickly-wooded  country  and  accustomed  from 
childhood  to  clear  jungle  lands,  the  rich  slopes 
were  exactly  the  territory  they  had  been  long 
seeking  in  vain.^^"  The  few  hundreds  who  first 
settled  on  the  land  at  a  nominal  rent  found  them- 
selves so  well  off,  that  they  sent  for  their  kinsmen 
from  among  the  southern  hills,  and  before  1838 
they  had  established  forty  villages,  containing  3000 
souls.  What  attracted  the  Santal  even  more  than 
the  virgin  soil  and  well-stocked  hunting-ground, 
was  the  circumstance  that  he  could  there  preserve 
his  nationality  intact.  Those  who  settled  on  the 
waste  lands  of  Beerbhoom  soon  came  to  be  re- 
garded, both  by  the  surrounding  lowlanders  and 
by  their  former  highland  kinsmen,  as  a  low  caste 
of  Hindus.  They  lost  their  old  customs,  their 
religion  and  social  institutions  grounded  on  the 
family  basis,  with  the  equality  between  man  and 
man  which  those  institutions  imply,  and  subsided 
into  an  insignificant  caste  of  the  great  Hindu 
community.  Indeed  in  the  lowland  village  the 
Santal  was  regarded  as  a  flesh-eating  barbarian, 
and  had  to  take  his  place  in  the  lowest  rank. 
But  Hindus  rarely  penetrated  the  northern  hill 
country  inside  the  ring  of  pillars,  and  the  Santal 

'^'''  Mr.  John  Petty  Ward,  of  the  Civil  Service,  may  be  considered 
the  founder  of  this  colony.  The  ring  fence  is  295  miles  in  circum- 
tcrcncc,  containing  866  square  miles  of  highland  and  500  of  lowland 
territory.     Of  the  latter,  254  square  miles  had  been  reclaimed  in  1851. 


2  24  'J'Jff'^  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

has  there  preserved  liis  nationality  to  this  day. 
The  enclosure,  therefore,  became  the  favourite 
colony  for  the  constantly  overflowing  Santals,  and  in 
1847^ — less  than  twenty-five  years  from  the  time  Mr. 
Ward  erected  the  pillars — fifteen  hundred  Santal 
villages  and  townships,  containing  a  population  of 
about  a  hundred  thousand  souls,  had  sprung  up 
within  the  ring.  According  to  recent  statistics, 
they  now  considerably  exceed  200,000. 

The  Santal  was  destined  not  only  to  restore 
the  equilibrium  between  the  population  and  the 
cultivable  land  in  the  western  lowlands,  but  also 
to  become  the  means  of  rendering  British  enter- 
prise possible  throughout  the  whole  of  Bengal. 
During  the  past  two  generations,  every  Hindu, 
beine  able  to  obtain  a  little  farm  with  a  homestead 
of  his  own,  naturally  declined  becoming  the  hired 
workman  of  foreign  employers.  The  division  of 
the  population  into  capitalists  and  day-labourers 
did  not  take  place ;  and  when  English  capital 
sought  investments  in  Bengal,  it  found  the  second 
element  of  production  wanting.  It  had  therefore, 
adapting  itself  to  the  condition  of  the  country,  to 
bribe  the  agriculturists  to  labour  by  means  of  ad- 
vances,— a  system  unprofitable  in  itself,  and  apt  to 
lead  to  great  abuses.  In  process  of  time,  moreover, 
the  chief  product  of  English  enterprise — indigo — 
became  an  unpopular  crop  with  the  husbandman  ; 
and  in  some  places  the  planter  found  that,  in  order 
to  cultivate  it,  he  must  first  get  the  whole  surround- 
ing population  into  his  power  by  loans,  or  by  pur- 


THE  SANTA LS  AS  DAY-LABOURERS.         225 

chasing  the  land  they  tllletl.  During  a  quarter  of 
a  century,  a  large  proportion  of  the  indigo  crop  of 
Bengal  was  produced  under  pressure,  not  the  less 
irksome  because  the  husbandman  had  voluntarily 
subjected  himself  to  it.  From  this  unsatisfactory 
state  of  thincfs  the  hill-men  of  the  west  afforded 
the  means  of  escape.  About  1835  Santals  and 
kindred  aboriginal  tribes  moved  down  in  little 
bands  towards  the  east,  willing  to  work  at  anything 
that  would  yield  them  a  living,  but  preferring  agri- 
cultural employment  where  they  could  get  it.  In 
Western  Bengal  the  hills  and  arid  laterite  clearly 
fix  the  limits  of  cultivation,  and  these  limits  had 
been  reached.  In  the  eastern  districts  the  exube- 
rant alluvial  soil  yet  awaited  the  husbandman,  and 
})resently  Santal  villages  sprang  up  on  the  margin 
of  each  secluded  marsh  and  jungle.  The  system 
of  exacting  labour  under  pressure  from  the  Hindu 
cultivators  had  always  been  disagreeable  to  most 
English  gentlemen.  It  now  became  unnecessary, 
for  the  Santal  immigrants  afforded  a  population  of 
day-labourers.  Indigo-growing  exactly  suited  the 
hill-man.  It  mainly  consisted  of  agricultural  opera- 
tions ;  and  it  allowed  him  to  work,  according  to  his 
wont,  by  fits  »and  starts,  demanding  that  every 
sinew  should  be  strained  at  certain  seasons,  and 
permitting  of  almost  total  idleness  during  others. 

From  personal  observation  both  in  the  eastern 
and  western  districts  of  Lower  Bengal,  I  am  con- 
vinced that  a  deep,  unceasing  current  of  population 

still  flows  from  the  western  highlands.      Land  is  not 
VOL.  I,  p 


2  26  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

only  more  fertile,  but  also  cheaper,  in  the  east  than 
the  west.  Meagre  soil,  requiring  to  be  manured 
and  artificially  watered,  and  yielding  only  one  crop 
in  return,  cannot  be  obtained  in  Beerbhoom  at  a  less 
rent  than  nine  shillings  an  acre.  Excellent  land  in 
the  eastern  districts,  yielding  two  crops  a-year  for 
the  trouble  of  turning  up  the  soil,  could,  until  very 
recently,  be  had  at  seven  or  eight.  In  the  latter 
districts,  indeed,  manuring  and  artificial  irrigation 
are  almost  unknown.  '  It  does  not  appear  to  be 
generally  known,'  says  a  Calcutta  newspaper,  '  but 
it  is  indisputably  the  fact,  that  Eastern  Bengal  is  at 
this  moment  being  peopled  by  the  spare  population 
of  the  west'  In  every  part  of  Nuddea  little  com- 
munities of  Santals,  Dangars,  or  other  hill-men,  may 
be  found  living  apart  from  the  Hindus,  and  pre- 
serving their  national  customs  in  the  middle  of  the 
lowland  population.  Many  indigo  factories  in  the 
eastern  districts  ^'^  have  villages  of  these  western 
highlanders.  A  family  of  them  makes  its  appear- 
ance wherever  manual  labour  is  wanted,  builds  its 
leaf  huts  in  a  few  days,  and  before  the  end  of  the 
month  feels  as  much  at  home  as  if  it  were  still 
among  the  mountains.  Patient  of  labour,  at  home 
with  nature,  able  to  live  on  a  penny  ar  day,  contented 
with  roots  when  better  food  is  not  to  be  had,  dark- 
skinned,  a  hearty  but  not  habitually  excessive  toper, 
given  to  pig-hunting  on  holidays,  despised  by  the 
Hindus,  and  heartily  repaying  their  contempt,  the 
hill-men  of  the  west  furnish  the  sinews  by  which 

*-  The  Boomi-parah. 


THEIR  MIGRATJOXS.  227 

English  enterprise  is  carried  on  in  Eastern  Bengal. 
Many  of  them  come  from  the  central  highlands, 
where  the  population  is  permanently  just  one  degree 
above  absolute  starvation,  where  the  extension  of 
tillage  is  only  possible  after  a  considerable  outlay 
of  capital  in  digging  tanks,  where  the  winters  are 
severe,  where  cutaneous  diseases  and  every  infir- 
mity common  to  half-starved  hunting  communities 
are  rampant,  and  where  the  political  disaffection 
which  springs  from  a  chronically  hungry  stomach 
is  never  unknown.  They  settle  in  a  land  where 
Nature  has  done  her  utmost  to  render  unnecessary 
the  toil  of  man,  where  good  wages  are  always  to  be 
had  in  ready  money,  and  where  the  very  jungle  pro- 
duces as  ample  a  subsistence  as  their  little  cultivated 
patches  at  home.  Every  winter,  after  the  indigo  is 
packed,  numbers  of  the  labourers  visit  their  native 
villages,  and  seldom  return  unaccompanied  with  a 
train  of  poor  relations,  who  look  forward  to  the 
wages  of  the  spring  sowing  season  as  the  soldiers  of 
Alaric  contemplated  the  spoils  of  Lombardy. 

The  law  of  supply  and  demand  operates  in  the 
long-run  as  effectively,  although  more  tardily,  in  the 
valley  of  the  Ganges  as  on  the  banks  of  the  Mersey 
or  the  Clyde.  In  the  western  districts  of  Bengal 
the  population  have  outgrown  the  land,  and  in  the 
eastern   they   have    not    yet   become   equal   to   it.^^ 

^^  The  old  rates  for  rice  land  in  Nuddea  were  one  shilling  and 
sixpence  per  acre.  In  a  large  majority  of  rent  suits  that  came  before 
me  in  1865,  when  in  charge  of  the  subdivision  of  Kooshtea,  the  rent 
of  fair  land  was  under  six  shillings  per  acre  ;  and  the  highest  rent 
claimed  was,  if  I  remember  rightly,  twelve  shillings  an  acre  for  land 


2  28  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

Labour,  therefore,  can  make  a  better  bargain  with 
land  and  capital  in  the  east  than  in  the  west ;  and 
the  hill-races,  uncivilised  though  they  be,  are  saga- 
cious enough  to  find  out  and  frequent  the  districts 
where  they  can  get  the  highest  price  for  the  one 
marketable  article  that  Providence  has  given  them — 
the  work  of  their  hands. 

The  Santal  colony  within  the  ring  of  masonry 
pillars  in  the  north  became,  under  the  lenient  treat- 
ment of  the  British  Government,  as  safe  and  peace- 
ful as  any  district  of  Lower  Bengal.  Hindu  mer- 
chants flocked  thither  every  winter  after  harvest  to 
buy  up  the  crop,  and  by  degrees  each  market-town 
throughout  the  settlement  had  its  resident  Hindu 
o-rain-dealer.  The  Santal  was  io^norant  and  honest ; 
the  trading  Hindu  is  keen  and  unscrupulous.  Not 
a  year  passed  without  some  successful  shopkeeper 
returning  from  the  hill-slopes  to  astonish  his  native 
town  by  a  display  of  quickly-gotten  wealth,  and  to 
buy  land  upon  the  plains.  The  Santal  country  came 
to  be  regarded    by  the  less  honourable  orders  of 

naturally  irrigated,  and  bearing  two  crops  a  year.  Such  land  can 
hardly  be  obtained  in  Beerbhoom.  The  little  there  is  of  it  is  used  for 
mulberry  cultivation,  and  pays  from  twenty-four  to  forty-two  shillings 
an  acre.  That  a  large  surplus  of  land  exists  in  the  eastern  districts, 
is  proven  by  the  prevalence  of  the  Utbandi  system,  according  to 
which  the  husbandman  enters,  without  any  previous  arrangement 
with  the  proprietor,  on  the  uncultivated  land,  takes  as  many  crops  off 
it  as  he  can  get,  and  deserts  it  for  fresh  fields  at  the  end  of  the  year. 
The  proprietor  measures  the  land  thus  cultivated  when  the  crop  is 
ripe,  and  charges  the  small  rent  of  seven  shillings  and  sixpence  per 
acre.  This  represents  the  rent  not  only  of  the  year  during  which  the 
land  is  cruelly  overcropped,  but  also  of  the  succeeding  one,  during 
which  it  will  in  all  probability  lie  fallow.  Since  1865  I  understand 
that  rents  have  risen  in  Nuddea. 


THE  HINDU  TRADERS  CHEAT  THEM.        229 

Hindus  as  a  country  where  a  fortune  was  to  be 
made,  no  matter  by  what  means,  so  that  it  was  made 
rapidly.  That  the  Hindus  appear  throughout  their 
whole  connection  with  the  Santals  as  cheats,  extor- 
tioners, and  oppressors,  tells  neither  more  nor  less 
disgracefully  against  the  Hindu  population  in  gene- 
ral, than  the  unscrupulous  conduct  of  a  few  English 
adventurers  would  tell  against  the  honour  of  the 
English  nation.  Along  the  skirt  of  the  Santal 
country,  from  the  ring-fenced  colony  on  the  north 
to  the  highland  valleys  of  Beerbhoom,  Hindu 
hucksters  settled  upon  various  pretences,  and  in  a 
few  years  grew  into  men  of  fortune.  They  cheated 
the  poor  Santal  in  every  transaction.  The  forester 
brought  his  jars  of  clarified  butter  for  sale  ;  the 
Hindu  measured  it  in  vessels  with  false  bottoms  : 
the  husbandman  came  to  exchange  his  rice  for  salt, 
oil,  cloth,  and  gunpowder  ;  the  Hindu  used  heavy 
weights  in  ascertaining  the  quantity  of  grain,  light 
ones  in  weighing  out  the  articles  given  in  return. 
If  the  Santal  remonstrated,  he  was  told  that  salt, 
being  an  excisable  commodity,  had  a  set  of  weights 
and  measures  peculiar  to  itself.  The  fortunes  made 
by  traffic  in  produce  were  augmented  by  usury.  A 
family  of  new  settlers  required  a  small  advance  of 
grain  to  eke  out  the  produce  of  the  chase  while  they 
were  clearing  the  jungle.  The  Hindu  dealer  gave 
them  a  few  shillings'  worth  of  rice,  and  seized  the 
land  as  soon  as  they  had  cleared  it  and  sown  the 
crop.  Another  family,  in  a  fit  of  hospitality,  feasted 
away    their    whole    harvest,    and    tluMi    opened    an 


2  30  THE  ANN/ILS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

account  at  the  grain -dealer's,  who  advanced  enough 
to  keep  them  above  starvation  during  the  rest  of 
the  year.  From  the  moment  the  peasant  touched 
the  borrowed  rice,  he  and  his  children  were  the  serfs 
of  the  corn  merchant.  No  matter  what  economy 
the  family  practised,  no  matter  what  effort  they 
made  to  extricate  themselves  ;  stint  as  they  might, 
toil  as  they  might,  the  Hindu  claimed  the  whole 
crop,  and  carried  on  a  balance  to  be  paid  out  of  the 
next  harvest.  Year  after  year  the  Santal  sweated 
for  his  oppressor.  If  the  victim  threatened  to  run 
off  into  the  jungle,  the  usurer  instituted  a  suit  in  the 
courts,  taking  care  that  the  Santal  should  know 
nothine  of  it  till  the  decree  had  been  obtained  and 
execution  taken  out.  Without  the  slightest  warning, 
the  poor  husbandman's  buffaloes,  cows,  and  little 
homestead  were  sold,  not  omitting  the  brazen  house- 
hold vessels  which  formed  the  sole  heirloom  of  the 
family.  Even  the  cheap  iron  ornaments,  the  out- 
ward tokens  of  female  respectability  among  the 
Santals,  were  torn  from  the  wife's  wrists.  Redress 
was  out  of  the  question  :  the  court  sat  in  the 
civil  station  perhaps  a  hundred  miles  off  The 
English  judge,  engrossed  with  the  collection  of  the 
revenue,  had  no  time  for  the  petty  grievances  of  his 
people.  The  native  underlings,  one  and  all,  had 
taken  the  pay  of  the  oppressor  :  the  police  shared 
in  the  spoil,  '  God  is  great,  but  He  is_too  far  off,' 
said  the  Santal ;  and  the  poor  cried,  and  there  was 
none  to  help  them. 

Of   all    this.    Government    knew    nothincr.       A 


THE  COURTS  GIVE  NO  REDRESS.  231 

single  English  officer  had  been  deputed  to  look  after 
the  Santals,  and  what  one  man  could  do  he  appears 
to  have  done.  As  cultivation  extended  he  enhanced 
the  land-tax,  and  without  oppression,  or  raising  a 
single  murmur,  the  revenue  rose  under  his  manage- 
ment from  ;^668  in  1838  to  ;^68o3  in  1854.  The 
administration  of  justice  had  to  be  deputed  to  in- 
ferior officers  of  the  courts,  Hindus  who  naturally- 
sided  with  plaintiffs  of  their  own  race  against  the 
despised  Santal.  If  the  English  superintendent 
could,  with  the  utmost  industry,  get  through  the 
daily  routine  of  his  revenue  work,  he  deemed  him- 
self fortunate.  For  inquiries  into  the  history,  the 
habits,  or  the  necessities  of  the  people,  he  had 
not  a  moment  to  spare.  A  well-armed  and  only 
half-reclaimed  population  of  sturdy  aborigines  was 
allowed  to  shoot  up  with  an  uncared-for  growth  ; 
and  Government,  so  far  from  feeling  any  anxiety, 
congratulated  itself  upon  having  converted  a  hun- 
dred thousand  wandering  savages  into  settled  agri- 
culturists. It  dwelt  with  delight  upon  the  annual 
returns,  showing  how  swiftly  the  jungle  had  given 
place  to  ploughed  land,  and  cited  the  Santal  settle- 
ment as  a  proof  of  what  it  was  the  fashion  of  the 
day  to  call  a  cheap  and  practical  administration. 
But  the  Santal  colony  was  destined  to  furnish  a 
terrible  argument  against  such  an  administration. 
The  servants  of  an  association  like  the  East  India 
Company,  which  had  to  make  its  dividends  out  of 
the  revenues,  were  constantly  liable  to  the  temp- 
tation of  looking  at  government   in  the  light  of  a 


232  71  IE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

mercantile  undertaking,  and  of  estimating  its  suc- 
cess by  its  profits.  This  temptation  the  Court  of 
Directors  resisted  with  a  consistency  most  credit- 
able to  our  nation,  but  ambitious  subordinates  in 
India  sometimes  took  a  narrower  view,  for  the 
benign  maxim  that  Indian  governors  are  the  trus- 
tees of  the  Indian  people,  not  merely  of  a  few 
hundred  English  shareholders,  obtained  a  full  and 
definite  recognition  only  when  India  passed  under 
the  British  Crown.  In  the  administration  of  the  San- 
tal  settlement,  everything  that  cost  money  without 
bringing  in  a  tangible  return  was  avoided.  Nothing 
was  spent  in  obtaining  a  knowledge  of  the  people. 
The  superintendent  was  pre-eminently  a  practical 
man  ;  and  so  it  fell  out  that,  early  in  1855,  the  most 
peaceful  province  in  the  empire  became  the  scene 
of  a  protracted  rebellion,  without  any  one  being 
able  to  give  either  warning  or  explanation.  Up  to 
1854  the  Santal  colonists  within  the  ring-fence  had 
only  the  choice  of  continuing  the  serf  of  the  Hindu 
usurer,  or  returning  to  the  sterile,  over-populated 
country  whence  he  had  come.  In  1848  three 
whole  townships  accepted  the  latter  alternative, 
and,  throwing  up  their  clearings,  fled  in  despair  to 
the  jungle.  But  the  majority  preferred  the  life 
even  of  a  serf  on  the  fertile  lowlands,  to  exposing 
their  women  and  children  to  the  permanently  half- 
starved  existence  of  the  forest,  and  accepted  that 
mild  form  of  prsedial  slavery  which  has  been  an 
immemorial  institution  in  Bengal.  Until  i860  no 
penal  provisions  existed  against  it,  and  indeed  the 


USUR  Y  DE  VELOPES  SLA  VER  V.  233 

last  preceding  law,  by  regulating  its  incidents  and 
refusing  it  the  support  of  the  courts,  had  acknow- 
ledged its  existence.^*  Many  of  the  Santals  had 
no  land  or  crop  to  pledge  for  their  little  debts.  If 
a  man  of  this  class  required  a  few  shillings  to  bury 
his  father,  he  went  to  the  Hindu  usurer  for  it;  and 
having  no  security  to  offer  except  his  manual  labour 
and  that  of  his  children,  he  bound  over  himself  and 
family  as  slaves  till  the  loan  should  be  repaid. 
The  few  pieces  of  silver  were  speedily  spent  on  his 
father's  pyre,  the  funeral  feast  was  eaten,  and  next 
morning  the  unhappy  household  started  for  the 
usurer's  residence,  and  delivered  themselves  into 
slavery.  The  master  neither  expected  nor  wished 
for  the  repayment  of  the  debt,  and  took  care,  by 
working  his  slave  every  hour  of  the  day,  to  leave 
him  no  leisure  for  earning  a  pectilium  with  which 
to  buy  his  liberty.  The  only  inheritance  he  had 
to  leave  to  his  children  was  the  debt,  at  first  a  few 
shillings,  but  now  grown  by  compound  interest  at 
2,2,  per  cent,  into  many  pounds.  If  the  slave  re- 
fused to  give  up  his  whole  time,  the  master  stopped 
his  food  ;  if  he  worked  for  other  people,  the  master 
took  out  legal  execution  against  his  person,  and 
soon  brought  the  ignorant  creature  to  his  knees,  by 
artfully  exaggerating  the  terrors  of  the  jail. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  masters  acted  with 
unnecessary  cruelty.  I  have  never  heard  a  single 
tale  of  atrocities  such  as  the  American  slaveholders 
are    said    to  have    practised.       The    Hindu    is    too 

'■'  Act  V.  of  1843  (Indian  Council). 


234  ^'//^'  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

dignified  to  strike  his  dependants,  and  the  jungle 
always  remained  when  existence  under  a  harsh 
master  became  intolerable.  A  mitigated  serfdom 
like  this  is  indigenous  in  every  country  where  the 
people  increase  and  the  means  of  subsistence  stand 
still.  It  represents  the  last  resource  of  labour  when 
placed  by  over-population  completely  at  the  mercy 
of  capital.  The  labouring  man,  toil  as  he  may,  can 
earn  at  most  a  bare  subsistence  ;  a  bare  subsistence 
is  the  least  that  the  master  can  give  to  his  slave. 
Between  1838  and  1851  the  population  within 
the  pillars  increased  from  3000  to  82,795,  besides 
10,000  on  the  outskirts  ;  and  the  landless  Santal, 
finding  himself  seldom  worse  off  as  a  serf  than  as 
a  free  labourer,  acquiesced  in  his  fate.  But  in 
1854  events  occurred  that  completely  altered  the 
relation  of  capital  to  labour  in  Bengal.  Govern- 
ment had  determined  to  give  railways  to  India, 
and  the  line  skirted  the  Santal  country  for  two  hun- 
dred miles.  High  embankments,  heavy  cuttings, 
many-arched  bridges,  created  a  demand  for  work- 
men such  as  had  never  been  known  in  the  history 
of  India.  Some  years  later,  twenty  thousand  were 
required  in  Beerbhoom  alone  ;  and  the  number 
along  the  sections  running  through  or  bordering  on 
the  Santal  territories  amounted  to  one  hundred 
thousand  men,*^  or  more  than  the  whole  overflow- 
ings of  the  Santal  race  during  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
Instead  of  labour  going  about  the  northern  colony 

'"'*  Return  of  daily  average  of  workpeople  employed  on  the  East 
Indian  Railway,  by  Mr.  George  TurnbuU,  chief  engineer. 


THE  RAIL  \VA  V  ABOLISHES  SLA  VER  Y.       235 

in  fruitless  search  of  capital,  capital  in  unprece- 
dented quantities  roamed  through  the  Santal 
country  in  quest  of  labour.  The  contractors  sent 
their  recruiters  to  every  fair,  and  in  a  few  months 
the  Santals  who  had  taken  service  came  back  with 
their  o-irdles  full  of  coin,  and  their  women  covered 
with  silver  jewellery,  'just  like  the  Hindus,'  as 
their  astonished  clans-people  remarked.  Every  man, 
woman,  and  child  could  get  work,  and  boys  of  ten 
earned  higher  wages  on  the  line  than  grown  men 
had  ever  earned  in  the  village.  It  was  then  that 
the  distinction  between  the  slave  and  the  freeman 
began  to  make  itself  felt.  The  entire  free  popula- 
tion who  had  not  land  of  their  own  went  forth  with 
their  women  and  children,  their  bows  and  arrows  in 
their  hands,  and  the  national  drum  tatooing  in  front, 
to  work  for  a  few  months  on  the  railway,  and  then 
to  return  and  buy  land,  and  give  feasts  to  their  clans- 
men. The  slaves,  who  were  compelled  to  remain 
working  for  their  masters  at  home,  contrasted  their 
own  lot  with  that  of  the  prosperous  adventurers. 
Running  away  became  common;  and  the  Hindu 
masters  had  recourse,  in  self-defence,  to  a  much 
stricter  and  more  vigilant  system  than  they  had  ever 
before  practised.  The  same  causes  that  had  made 
the  slave  eager  for  freedom  had  rendered  him  more 
valuable  to  his  master,  and  it  became  clear  that  the 
great  issue  would  soon  have  to  be  tried,  whether 
it  was  possible,  in  the  second  half  of  the  present 
century,  under  British  laws,  to  keep  men  slaves 
"when  it  was  worth  their  while  to  be  free. 


236  'J'lIE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

During  the  cold  weather  of  1854  and  1855  the 
Santals  appeared  to  be  in  a  strange,  restless  state. 
They  had  gathered  in  an  excellent  crop,  and  the 
influx  of  capital  had  enhanced  the  local  price  of 
agricultural  produce.  Nevertheless  the  highlanders 
continued  excited  and  discontented.  It  was  in  vain 
that  the  magistrate  of  Beerbhoom,  in  reviewing  the 
progress  of  his  district  during  the  year,  reported 
everything  prosperous.  '  The  very  extensive  works 
now  being  carried  on  by  the  railway  authorities 
throughout  the  district,'  he  wrote,  '  and  the  employ- 
ment given  by  them  to  vast  numbers  of  the  poorer 
classes,  has  greatly  ameliorated  the  condition  of  the 
inhabitants  ;  and  the  universally  abundant  harvest 
has  also  contributed  to  their  welfare.' ^^  But  in  spite 
of  high  prices  for  their  grain  and  high  wages  for  their 
labour,  the  race  swayed  restlessly  about.  The  truth 
was,  that  the  rich  Santals  had  determined  to  be  no 
longer  the  dupes  of  the  Hindus,  who  intercepted  these 
high  prices  ;  the  poorer  agriculturists  had  determined 
to  be  no  longer  their  serfs,  and  the  day-labourers  had 
determined  no  longer  to  be  their  slaves. 

To  a  people  in  this  frame  of  mind,  leaders  are 
seldom  wanting.  Two  brothers,"  inhabitants  of  a 
village  that  had  been  oppressed  beyond  bearing 
by  Hindu  usury,  stood  forth  as  the  deliverers  of 
their  countrymen,  claimed  a  divine  mission,  and 
produced   heaven-sent  tokens  as   their  credentials. 

*'"  From  the  officiating  Magistrate  of  Beerbhoom  to  the  Commis- 
sioner of  the  Burdwan  Division,  dated  i8th  February  1855.     B.  J.  R. 

*'"  Sidu  and  Khanu,  natives  of  Bagnadihi,  afterwards  joined  by 
their  other  two  iMothers,  Chand  and  Bairab. 


THE  SANTALS  GROW  RESTLESS.  237 

The  god  of  the  Santals,  they  said,  had  appeared 
to  them  on  seven  successive  days  :  at  first  in  the 
form  of  a  white  man  in  a  native  costume ;  next  as 
a  flame  of  fire,  with  a  knife  glowing  in  the  midst ; 
then  as  the  perforated  sHce  of  a  Sal  trunk  which 
forms  the  wheel  of  the  Santal's  bullock  cart.  The 
divinity  delivered  to  the  two  brothers  a  sacred 
book,  and  the  sky  showered  down  slips  of  paper, 
which  were  secretly  spread  throughout  the  whole 
Santal  country.  Each  village  received  a  scrap 
without  a  word  of  explanation,  but  with  an  im- 
precation, as  it  would  avoid  the  wrath  of  the 
national  god,  to  forward  it  without  a  moment's 
pause  to  the  nearest  hamlet.  Having  in  this  way 
raised  a  general  expectation  of  some  great  event 
among  their  countrymen,  the  leaders  hoped  that 
their  English  governors  would  inquire  into  the 
matter,  and  redress  their  wrongs  ;  but  their  Eng- 
lish governors  had  no  time  for  such  inquiries. 
They  next  petitioned  the  chief  authority  to  do 
them  justice,  adding  obscurely,  that  their  god  had 
commanded  them  to  wait  no  longer.  This  officer 
knew  nothing  of  the  people  or  their  wrongs.  A 
cheap  and  practical  administration  has  only  time 
to  look  after  its  revenues  ;  the  Santal  administra- 
tion did  this  effectively ;  and  for  the  terrible  retri- 
bution which  our  ignorance  of  the  people  brought 
upon  us,  the  system,  not  any  individual  officer, 
must  be  blamed.  The  English  superintendent  col- 
lected the  revenue  as  usual,  and  put  aside  the  com- 
plaints :  the  Santal  leaders  in  despair  had  recourse 


238  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

to  the  Commissioner — a  high  English  official  in 
charge  of  a  divison  of  the  province — and,  it  is 
said,  plainly  told  him  that  if  he  would  not  redress 
their  wrongs,  they  would  redress  them  themselves.^* 
The  Commissioner  could  not  understand  what  they 
wanted  :  the  taxes  came  in  as  usual  ;  the  admini- 
stration continued  cheap  and  practical  as  before. 
/  God  is  great,  but  He  is  too  far  off,'  said  the  San- 
tal  leaders.  A  last  resource  remained.  Emissaries, 
bearing  the  national  Sal  branch,  were  despatched  to 
every  mountain  valley ;  and  the  people,  obedient  to 
the  signal,  gathered  together  in  vast  masses,  not 
knowing  for  what  object,  but  with  their  expectation 
excited  by  the  slips  of  paper,  and  carrying  the  in- 
variable bow  and  arrows  in  their  hands. 

The  brothers  found  that  they  had  raised  a 
storm  which  they  could  not  control.  A  general 
order  went  through  the  encampment  to  move  down 
upon  the  plains  towards  Calcutta,  and  on  the  30th 
June  1855  the  vast  expedition  set  out.^^  The  body- 
guard of  the  leaders  alone  amounted  to  30,000  men. 

68  I  should  add  that  I  have  never  been  able  to  verify  this  state- 
ment from  official  documents. 

^^  It  was  asserted  that  on  this  day  the  Santal  leaders  addressed 
an  ultimatum  to  the  Government,  to  the  Commissioner  of  the  Bhagul- 
pore  Division,  to  the  Magistrates  and  Collectors  of  Bhagulpore  Dis- 
trict and  Beerbhoom,  and  to  the  various  police  inspectors  through 
whose  jurisdictions  their  route  lay.  I  have  never  discovered  one  of 
these  curious  missives  ;  few,  if  any,  of  them  reached  their  destination, 
but  an  accurate  contemporary  writer,  with  the  whole  facts  before  him, 
gives  his  authority  to  the  statement.  The  ultimatum  is  said  to  have 
insisted  chiefly  on  the  regulation  of  usury,  on  a  new  arrangement  of 
the  revenues,  and  on  the  expulsion,  or,  as  some  say,  the  massacre, 
of  all  Hindu  extortioners  in  the  Santal  country. 


THE  Y  COLLECT  IN  ARMED  MASSES.         239 

As  long  as  the  food  which  they  had  brought  from 
their  villages  lasted,  the  march  was  orderly  ;  but 
unofficered  bodies  of  armed  men  roaming  about,  not 
very  well  knowing  where  they  are  going,  soon  be- 
came dangerous ;  and  with  the  end  of  their  own 
stock  of  provisions,  the  necessity  for  plundering  or 
levying  benevolences  commenced.  The  leaders 
preferred  the  latter,  the  rabble  the  former.  On 
the  7th  of  July  a  native  inspector  of  police  heard 
of  the  entrance  of  a  vast  body  of  hill-men,  with  the 
two  brothers  at  their  head,  into  his  jurisdiction  ;  and 
the  Hindu  usurers,  becoming  uneasy,  bribed  him  to 
get  up  a  false  charge  of  burglary  against  the  band, 
and  apprehend  their  leaders.  He  went  out  with 
his  guards,  but  was  met  half-way  by  an  embassy 
from  the  Santals,  with  instructions  to  escort  him 
into  their  camp.  The  two  brothers  ordered  him  to 
levy  a  tax  of  ten  shillings  on  every  Hindu  family  in 
his  jurisdiction,  for  the  subsistence  of  their  followers, 
and  were  about  to  dismiss  him  in  peace,  when  some 
one  discovered  that  he  had  come  out  with  the  inten- 
tion of  getting  up  a  false  complaint.  At  first  he 
denied  the  charge,  saying  he  was  on  his  way  to 
investigate  an  accidental  death  from  snake-bite, 
but  afterwards  confessed  the  usurers  had  bribed 
him  to  get  up  a  false  case  of  burglary,  and  bring 
in  their  leaders  bound.  The  \^no  brothers  said.  If 
you  have  any  proof  against  us,  take  us  and  bind  us. 
The  foolhardy  inspector,  presuming  on  the  usually 
peaceable  nature  of  the  Santals,  ordered  his  guards 
to  pinion  them  ;  but  no  sooner  were  the  words  out 


240  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

of  his  mouth,  than  the  whole  mass  rushed  upon  him, 
and  bound  him  and  his  minions.  After  a  hurried 
trial,  the  chief  leader  Sidu  slew  the  corrupt  in- 
spector with  his  own  hands,  and  the  police  left  nine 
of  their  party  dead  in  the  Santal  camp. 
"^  From  this  day — the  7th  of  July — the  rebellion 
dates.  At  the  time  of  their  setting  out,  they  do  not 
seem  to  have  contemplated  armed  opposition  to  the 
Government.  When  all  was  over,  their  leaders, 
who  in  other  respects  at  any  rate  disdained  equi- 
vocation or  falsehood,  solemnly  declared  that  their 
purpose  was  to  march  down  to  Calcutta,  in  order 
to  lay  the  petition  which  the  local  authorities  had 
rejected  at  the  feet  of  the  Governor-General ;  and 
the  truth  of  this  statement  is  rendered  probable  by 
the  fact  that  their  wives  and  children  accompanied 
them.  Indeed,  the  movement  could  not  be  dis- 
tinguished at  first  from  one  of  their  great  national 
processions,  headed  by  the  customary  drums  and 
fifes.  Want  drove  them  to  plunder,  and  the  preci- 
pitate outrage  upon  the  inspector  of  police  changed 
the  whole  character  of  the  expedition.  The  inoffen- 
sive but  only  half-tamed  highlander  had  tasted 
blood,  and  in  a  moment  his  old  savage  nature 
returned.  Nevertheless  their  proceedings  retained 
a  certain  air  of  rude  justice.  The  leaders  had  a 
revelation  enjoining  the  immediate  slaughter  of  the 
Hindu  usurers,  but  protection  to  all  other  classes  ; 
and  assured  the  ignorant  multitude  that  the  great 
English  lord  in  the  south  would  sanction  these  pro- 
ceedings and  share  the  plunder. 


ANGLO-INDIAN  PANICS.  241 

The  Anglo-Indian  community  is  naturally  liable 
to  the  apprehensions  and  hasty  conclusions  incident 
to  a  small  body  of  settlers  surrounded  by  an  alien 
and  a  greatly  more  numerous  race.  To  what 
such  apprehensions  and  hasty  conclusions  may 
lead,  when  shared  by  the  local  administration,  the 
recent  Jamaica  tragedy  gave  melancholy  proof. 
Disaffection  that  would  be  sufficiently  met  by  a  few 
dozen  policemen  in  England,  becomes  a  very  serious 
matter  where  millions  of  pounds'  worth  of  property 
and  many  thousand  lives  depend  upon  absolutely 
unbroken  order.  It  is  not  a  question  whether  the 
disaffection  has  any  chance  of  ultimate  success. 
The  Anglo-Indian  community  is  perfectly  aware 
that  England  can  avenge,  but  it  also  knows  that 
England  may  be  too  late  to  save.  People  who  live 
in  this  situation  are  prone  to  exaggerate  danger,  as 
the  Jamaica  white  population  exaggerated  it,  and  to 
be  carried  into  excesses  such  as  the  Jamaica  troops 
committed.  With  the  Government  rests  the  heavy 
responsibility  of  counteracting  the  natural  tendency 
to  panic  on  the  part  of  the  public  ;  and  this  is  one,  but 
only  one,  of  many  permanent  causes  tending  to  pre- 
vent the  Indian  Government  and  the  Anf^lo-Indian 
press  from  being  in  perfect  accord.  The  English 
Government  of  India  from  an  early  period  fully  recog- 
nised their  duty  in  this  respect ;  indeed,  on  some  occa- 
sions it  would  appear  that  the  rebound  has  led  them 
into  the  opposite  extreme  ;  the  authorities  having 
underrated  the  danger  in  a  greater  and  more  fatal  de- 
gree than  the  outside  community  had  exaggerated  it. 

VOL.    I.  Q 


242  THE  ANNALS  OP  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

The  Santal  insurrection  found  the  Government 
strongly    imbued   with    this    spirit.      A    contempo- 
rary writer  stated  that  when  the  blow  was  at  last 
struck,  twelve  hundred  troops  could  not  be  found 
within  eighty  miles  of  the  rebels.'"      For  a  whole 
fortnight  the  Santals  spread  fire  and  sword  through- 
out the  western  districts.     The  armed  masses  ceased 
to  be  controlled  by  the  leaders  who  had  set  them  on  ; 
and  before  the  end  of  July,  scores  of  villages  had  been 
burned,  thousands  of  cattle  driven  away,  our  troops 
beaten  back,  and  several  Englishmen  along  with  two 
English  ladies  slain.     Many  a  little  English  station 
and  factory  lay  at  the  mercy  of  the  marauders ;  and 
that  the  atrocities  of  the  mutiny  of  1857  were  not  anti- 
cipated in  1855,  is  due  not  to  the  want  of  opportunity, 
but  to  the  natural  mildness  of  the  Santal,  only  one 
of  their  leaders  attacking  English  residents  unless  in 
self-defence.    Government  at  once  despatched  troops, 
but  the  rains  had  set  in,  and  the  rivers  became  im- 
passable for  days  together.     '  One  evening,'  says  an 
officer  who  played  an  important  part  in  putting  down 
the  rebellion,  '  when  my  regiment  was  at  Barrack- 
pore,  the  colonel   sent   for   me  and   ordered   me  to 
march  next  morning  with  a  detachment  to  Ranee- 
gunge,  in  Beerbhoom,  as  the  hill-tribes  had  broken 
out.     I  had  heard  nothing  of  the  affair  before,  nor 
was  it,  so  far  as  I  remember,  talked  of  in  military 
circles.     Next   morning    I    started    at  4    a.m.,  and 

'"  This  part  of  my  narrative  is  chiefly  derived  from  the  contem- 
porary press — the  Friend  of  India,  the  Englishman,  the  Harkaru 
and  the  Calcutta  Review. 


EXCESS  OF  OEE/C/AL  CALMNESS.  243 

reached  Burdwan  by  train  about  breakfast  time. 
The  Commissioner  (the  chief  civil  officer  of  that  divi- 
sion of  the  province)  came  to  me  and  ordered  me  to 
push  on  direct  for  Soorie,  the  capital  of  Beerbhoom, 
as  it  was  in  instant  danger  of  attack.  We  marched 
for  two  days  and  a  night,  the  rain  pouring  the  whole 
way,  and  my  men  without  any  regular  food.  As  we 
came  near  to  Soorie,  we  found  panic  in  every  village. 
The  Hindus  fairly  lined  the  road,  welcoming  us  with 
tears  in  their  eyes,  and  pressing  sweetmeats  and 
parched  rice  upon  my  exhausted  Sepoys.  At  Soorie 
we  found  things,  if  possible,  worse.  One  officer 
kept  his  horse  saddled  day  and  night,  the  jail  seemed 
to  have  been  hastily  fortified,  and  the  bulk  of  the 
coin  from  the  treasury  was  said,  I  know  not  with 
what  truth,  to  be  hid  in  a  well.''^ 

In  this  panic  the  Central  Government  declined 
to  share.  It  could  only  act  on  the  evidence  be- 
fore it,  and  the  local  authorities  wrote  much  more 
calmly  than  they  felt.  The  provincial  records  give 
a  very  inadequate  idea  of  the  state  of  affairs.  The 
character  which  an  Indian  officer  dreads  most  is 
that  of  an  alarmist,  and  as  the  officials  on  the 
spot  had  failed  to  foresee  the  storm,  there  was  a 
natural  tendency  to  underrate  it  when  at  length  it 
burst.  This,  too,  without  any  intention  to  conceal, 
or  even  consciousness  that  their  reports  were  apt  to 
mislead.      In  every  matter  of  fact  their  accuracy  is 

^1  Personal  Narrative  of  Major  Vincent  Jervis  ;  one  of  the  MS. 
contributions  on  which  this  chapter  is  based.  I  have  not  been  able 
officially  to  verify  the  legend  of  the  treasure  chests  in  the  well. 


244  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

beyond  question ;  but  in  the  inferences  drawn  from 
the  facts  the  tendency  appears.  Some  of  them, 
only  a  few  months  before,  had  reported  that  crime 
in  their  jurisdiction  had  greatly  decreased,  that  a  new 
and  more  effective  police  had  been  introduced,  and 
that  the  people  had  never  been  more  contented,  or 
the  district  as  a  whole  so  prosperous.  It  took 
time  for  men  who  had  written  in  this  strain  in 
February,  to  realize  that  their  district  was  the  seat 
of  a  rebellion  in  July.  Night  attacks  on  houses  by 
bands  of  from  five  to  fifty  men  had  always  been 
common  in  Bengal,  and  it  was  a  difiicult  matter  to 
pronounce  the  exact  line  at  which  such  enterprises 
cease  to  be  civil  offences  and  become  overt  insur- 
rection. A  single  example  will  sufiice.  *  The 
whole  inquiry  only  tends  to  prove,'  wrote  the 
magistrate  of  Beerbhoom,  with  regard  to  the  sack- 
ing of  a  Bengali  hamlet,  *  that  it  was  one  of 
those  occurrences  common  in  Bengal,  when  the 
Dacoits  were  bold,  adventurous,  and  determined, 
the  Bengali  a  coward  and  helpless,  and  the  village 
watchmen  all  absent  from  their  posts.'"  It  is  pos- 
sible that  in  this  individual  case  the  magistrate  may 
have  been  right  in  his  conjecture,  but  in  many 
similar  cases  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  mis- 
took rebellion  for  robbery.  Each  magistrate  put  off 
as  long  as  possible  the  admission  that  his  district 
was  in  arms  against  Government,  and  arraigned 
men,  who  should  have  been   hanged    as  rebels,  on 

'^  From  the  officiating  magistrate  of  Beerbhoom  to  the  Commis- 
sioner of  the  Burdwan  division,  dated  8th  Nov.  1S55.     B.  J.  R. 


MARTIAL  LA  W  DELA  YED.  245 

charges  of  burglary,  or  '  for  assembling  illegally  and 
riotously  with  offensive  weapons  for  the  purpose  of 
plunder,  and  to  commit  a  serious  breach  of  the 
peace.'  This  farce  continued  for  weeks  in  the 
courts  while  a  tragedy  was  being  enacted  outside. 
Such  pangs  does  it  cost  a  civil  officer  to  acknow- 
ledge that  his  people  are  in  revolt,  and  that  the 
authority  has  passed  out  of  his  hands. 

The  Government  therefore,  judging  from  the 
reports  before  it,  refused  to  be  alarmed.  It  sent 
troops  ;  but  anxious  to  avoid  the  severities  of  martial 
law,  and  following  precedents  afforded  by  disturbed 
frontier  districts  in  the  last  century,  placed  the  troops 
under  the  ordei"s  of  the  civil  authorities.  But  in  so 
doing,  it  overlooked  the  difference  between  a  col- 
lector of  Mr.  Keating's  school  in  1788,  and  a  col- 
lector of  1855.  Mr.  Keating  knew  nothing  of 
jurisprudence  ;  but  he  selected  the  passes  to  be 
held,  distributed  his  troops,  and  regulated  their 
movements  with  consummate  ability.  The  collector 
of  1855  was  a  more  able  lawyer,  and  administered 
his  district  with  much  cleaner  hands,  but  he  knew 
nothing  of  military  tacties ;  and  for  the  duties  now 
devolved  upon  him  he  had  nut,  and  never  pretended 
to  have,  any  capacity.  His  military  dispositions 
made  him  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  the  soldiers  sent 
to  act  under  him,  dissension  reigned  within  the 
English  camp,  and  the  rebels  plundered  and  mas- 
sacred at  pleasure  outside. 

About    the    25th   of  July,  Government   fiiulino 
that  it  must  take  severer  measures,  placed  the  re- 


2  46  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

duction  of  the  rebels  in  the  hands  of  an  experienced 
commander,"  with  instructions  that  amounted  to 
delivering  over  the  disturbed  districts  to  the  mili- 
tary power.  Then  it  relented,  explained  away  or 
retracted  its  orders,  and  removed  the  independent 
authority  from  the  general.  '  It  was  not  intended,' 
ran  the  despatch,  '  that  the  military  should  act  in- 
dependently of  the  civil  power  against  our  own 
subjects ;  but  that  the  nature  of  the  military  opera- 
tions necessary  for  dispersing  and  capturing  the 
insurgents,  and  for  putting  down  the  rebellion, 
should  be  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  military 
commanders.'^* 

Even  this  half-measure  gave  a  new  vigour  to 
the  action  of  the  military,  and  for  a  time  seemed 
likely  to  answer  the  ends  proposed.  Detachment 
after  detachment  hurried  to  the  west,  patriotic  native 
landholders  armed  and  drilled  their  retainers;" 
English  planters  supplied  the  troops  with  funds  on 
the  march  ;^^  his  Highness  of  Moorshedabad  sent  a 
splendid  train  of  elephants,  and  insisted  on  bearing 
all   their  expenses;"  and  a  Special   Commissioner, 


''^  General  Lloyd. 

^*  From  the  Secretary  of  the  Government  of  Bengal  to  the  Com- 
missioner of  the  Burdwan  division,  dated  Fort-William,  the  30th  July 
18^5.     Bn.  R. 

"'^  Vide  despatch  conveying  the  thanks  of  the  Government  to 
Babu  Bipacharan  Chakarbati,  a  Beerbhoom  landholder,  dated  2d 
October  1855.     B.  R.  R. 

'^  Letter  from  the  Commissioner  of  Burdwan  to  the  officiating 
collector  of  Beerbhoom,  dated  27th  September  1855,  para.  2.    B.  R.  R. 

"'  From  the  Special  Commissioner  suppressing  the  Santal  insur- 
rection, dated  Berhampore,  22d  August  1855. 


THE  MILITARY  ENGAGED.  247 

vested    with  extraordinary  powers,  was    appointed 
for  the  suppression  of  the  rebelhon/^ 

The  details  of  border  warfare,  in  which  disci- 
pHned  troops  mow  down  half-armed  peasants,  are 
unpleasant  in  themselves,  and  afford  neither  glory 
to  the  conquerors  nor  lessons  in  the  military  art. 
After  a  lapse  of  thirteen  years,  the  officers  who 
reduced  the  Santals  can  hardly  be  brought  to  dwell 
minutely  on  the  operation.  '  It  was  not  war,'  one 
of  them  has  said  to  me,  '  it  was  execution ;  we  had 
orders  to  go  out  whenever  we  saw  the  smoke  of  a 
village  rising  above  the  jungle.  The  magistrate 
used  to  go  with  us.  I  surrounded  the  village  with 
my  Sepoys,  and  the  magistrate  called  upon  the  rebels 
to  surrender.  On  one  occasion  the  Santals,  forty- 
five  in  number,  took  refuge  in  a  mud  house.  The 
magistrate  called  on  them  to  surrender,  but  the  only 
reply  was  a  shower  of  arrows  from  the  half-opened 
door.  I  said,  "  Mr.  Magistrate,  this  is  no  place  for 
you,"  and  went  up  with  my  Sepoys,  who  cut  a  large 
hole  throucrh  the  wall.  I  told  the  rebels  to  sur- 
render,  or  I  should  fire  in.  The  door  again  half 
opened,  and  a  volley  of  arrows  was  the  answer.  A 
company  of  Sepoys  advanced,  and  fired  through  the 
hole.  I  once  more  called  on  the  inmates  to  sur- 
render, while  my  men  reloaded.  Again  the  door 
opened,  and  a  volley  of  arrows  replied.  Some  of 
the  Sepoys  were  wounded,  the  village  was  burning 
all  round  us,  and   I   had  to  give  the  men  orders  to 

"^^  Another  from  the  same  to  Captain  R.  U.  Macdonalcl,  dated  the? 
2 1  St  August,  etc.  etc. 


2  48  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

do  their  work.  At  every  volley  we  offered  quarter ; 
and  at  last,  as  the  discharge  of  arrows  from  the  door 
slackened,  I  resolved  to  rush  in  and  save  some  of 
them  alive;  if  possible.  When  we  got  inside,  we 
found  only  one  old  man,  dabbled  with  blood,  stand- 
ing erect  among  the  corpses.  One  of  my  men  went 
up  to  him,  calling  him  to  throw  away  his  arms. 
The  old  man  rushed  upon  the  Sepoy,  and  hewed 
him  down  with  his  battle-axe.' ^^ 

'  It  was  not  war,'  the  commanding  officer  went 
on  to  say  ;  '  they  did  not  understand  yielding.  As 
long  as  their  national  drums  beat,  the  whole  party 
would  stand,  and  allow  themselves  to  be  shot  down. 
Their  arrows  often  killed  our  men,  and  so  we  had 
to  fire  on  them  as  long  as  they  stood.  When  their 
drums  ceased,  they  would  move  off  for  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  ;  then  their  drums  began  again, 
and  they  calmly  stood  till  we  came  up  and  poured 
a  few  volleys  into  them.  There  was  not  a  Sepoy  in 
the  war  who  did  not  feel  ashamed  of  himself.  The 
prisoners  were  for  the  most  part  wounded  men. 
They  upbraided  us  with  fighting  against  them. 
They  always  said  it  was  with  the  Bengalis  they  were 
at  war,  not  with  the  English.  If  a  single  Englishman 
had  been  sent  to  them  who  understood  their  wrongs, 
and  would  have  redressed  them,  they  declared  there 
would  have  been  no  war.  It  is  not  true  that  they 
used  poisoned  arrows.  They  were  the  most  truth- 
ful set  of  men  I  ever  met ;  brave  to  infatuation.  A 
lieutenant  of  mine  had  once  to  shoot  down  seventy- 

'9  Personal  Narrative  of  Major  Jervis. 


A   TEMPORARY  LULL.  249 

five  men  before  their  drums  ceased,  and  the  party 
fell  back.' 

By  the  middle  of  August  these  energetic  mea- 
sures had  driven  the  insurgents  from  the  plains. 
A  proclamation  was  therefore  issued,  offering  par- 
don to  all  except  the  leaders ;  and  the  civil  officers, 
jealous  of  even  the  partial  authority  given  to  the 
military,  represented  that  the  necessity  for  continuing 
that  authority  had  ceased.  '  All  has  been  quiet,' 
wrote  the  Beerbhoom  magistrate,  '  for  seven  weeks 
past.  The  villagers  have  returned  to  their  homes, 
and  the  husbandmen  are  eno-ao;ed  in  the  cultivation 
of  their  land  as  usual.  The  Santals  are  nowhere 
to  be  found,  ....  having  retreated  to  a  place  some 
thirty  miles  off,  in  another  district.' ^'^  But  the  lull 
was  only  temporary,  and  precisely  one  month  later 
we  find  the  same  officer  reporting  that  '  during  the 
past  fortnight  upwards  of  eighty  villages  have  been 
plundered  and  burnt  by  the  insurgents,' ^^  the  mails 
stopped,  ai  J  the  whole  of  the  north-west  part  of 
the  district  in  their  hands.  In  one  direction  an 
army  of  Santals  roved  through  the  district  three 
thousand  strong;  in  another  their  numbers  amounted 
to  seven  thousand ;  the  civil  authorities  were  driven 

^^  Letter  to  the  Commissioner,  dated  the  24th  of  August  1855, 
para.  2.  Similar  reports  had  been  previously  sent  by  the  officers 
of  the  other  disturbed  districts;  for  on  the  6th  of  August  the  Govern- 
ment decided,  from  the  evidence  before  it,  that  the  rebels  had  *  in  a 
great  measure  abandoned  opposition,'  and  that  little  remained  to  be 
done  except  to  receive  their  submission.  Despatch  No.  1808  to  the 
.Special  Commissioner.     B.  R.  R.  and  C.  O.  R. 

^*  From  the  magistrate  of  Beerbhoom  to  the  Commissioner  of 
Burdwan,  dated  24th  September  1855. 


250  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

in  from  the  outlying-  stations,  the  husbandmen  de- 
serted their  lands,  and  the  proclamation  of  pardon 
was  received  with  loud  defiance  and  contempt. 
The  intermediate  semi-aboriginal  classes  between 
the  Santal  and  the  Hindu,  and  indeed  several  of  the 
very  low  castes  of  the  Hindus  themselves,  appear 
at  this  time  to  have  joined  the  rebellion,  and  carried 
off  Brahman  priests  to  perform  the  great  October 
festival. ^^  Even  in  their  moment  of  success,  however, 
the  Santals  were  not  wantinof  in  a  sort  of  barbaric 
chivalry,  and  usually  gave  fair  warning  of  their 
purpose  to  plunder  a  town  before  they  actually 
came.  In  the  latter  half  of  September  (about  the 
2  2d  or  the  23d)  the  capital  of  Beerbhoom  was 
thrown  into  a  panic  by  the  receipt  of  such  a  mes- 
sage. A  post-runner  returned  one  day,  saying  the 
rebels  had  seized  him  while  on  his  journey,  taken 
away  his  mail  bags,  and  spared  his  life  only  on  the 
condition  that  he  would  carry  a  twig  of  their  national 
Sal  tree  to  the  magistrate.  The  latter  official  re- 
ported to  Government  that  the  twig  had  '  three 
leaves  on  it,  each  leaf  signifying  a  day  that  is  to 
elapse  before  their  arrival.' 

In  spite  of  the  common  danger,  discord  still 
reigned  between  the  civil  and  military  authorities. 
The  actual  operations  of  the  troops  had  been  freed 
from  the  control  of  the  magistrate  ;  but  as  martial 
law  had  not  been  declared,  the  military  remained 
individually  amenable  to  the  civil  officers  for  their 
acts.       No  distinct  line  had  been  fixed  where   the 

^^  The  Durga  Piija. 


MARTIAL  LA  W  DECLARED.  25 1 

authority  of  the  latter  ended  ;  constant  misunder- 
standings resulted,  and  every  post  carried  an  angry 
reference  on  the  point. 

In  the  early  part  of  November,  after  the  western 
districts  had  suffered  four  months'  devastation,  Go- 
vernment reluctantly  proclaimed  martial  law.  It 
had  tried  in  vain  to  avert  the  rigours  of  military 
occupation  ;  but  its  leniency  had  only  resulted  in 
an  occupation  by  the  rebels,  instead  of  by  our  own 
troops.  The  local  officers,  by  understating  the 
disturbances,  had  first  allowed  them  to  spread,  and 
then  grudged  any  transfer  of  their  authority  to  the 
military  till  they  found  that  the  rebels  had  entirely 
usurped  it.  As  soon  as  the  order  for  martial  law 
went  forth,  things  assumed  a  very  different  appear- 
ance. Official  bickerings  ceased,  and  requisitions  for 
supplies  formed  the  only  communications  between  the 
brigadier  and  the  collector.  A  cordon  of  outposts, 
in  some  instances  numbering  twelve  to  fourteen 
thousand  men,*^  quickly  pushed  back  the  Santals  from 
the  open  county,  and  in  six  weeks  nothing  remained 
but  to  sweep  the  jungle  clear  of  stragglers.  Before 
the  end  of  the  cold  weather  (1855-56)  the  rebels  had 
formally  tendered  their  submission,  and  thousands 
of  them  were  peacefully  at  work  upon  a  new  road. 

But  while  the  Government,  misled  by  the  reports 
of  local  officers,  and  actuated  by  its  traditional 
leniency  towards  the  people,  had  failed  in  promptly 

*•'  Letter  from  Brigadier  L.  S.  Bird,  commanding  the  Bccrbhoom 
and  Bancorah  frontier  force,  to  the  Collector  of  Bcerbhoom,  dated 
I  Gill  December  1855.     ^-  ^  ^- 


252  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

dealing  with  the  rebels,  it  had  lost  not  a  moment  in 
searching  for  and  trying  to  remove  the  causes  of 
discontent.  It  directed  a  minute  inquiry  into  that 
cheap  and  practical  administration  which  had  for- 
merly been  so  much  applauded.  The  Santals  had 
complained  of  the  distance  of  the  courts  :  the 
Government's  own  servants  now  reported,  that 
along  the  Santal  frontier  the  English  officers  '  are 
too  few,  and  stationed  too  far  apart,  to  exercise  an 
effectual  supervision  over  the  great  extent  of  country 
placed  under  their  control. '^^  It  speedily  became 
apparent  that  the  economy  of  the  former  admini- 
stration consisted  in  taking  the  taxes  without  giving 
anything  in  return  for  them, — an  economy  that  had 
resulted  in  an  insurrection  for  which  the  State  had 
paid  more  in  six  months  than  the  cost  of  ten  years' 
good  government.  No  sooner  had  order  been  re- 
stored than  the  Governor  of  that  day  retracted  the 
errors  of  his  predecessors.  He  erected  the  Santal 
territory  into  a  separate  district.  Instead  of  a 
single  officer,  taken  from  the  subordinate  depart- 
ment, the  covenanted  civil  service  was  indented 
upon  for  its  highest  talent  to  administer  the  abori- 
ginal frontier.  The  old  police,  who  had  tyrannized 
over  the  simple  peasantry,  were  rooted  out,  and 
English  officers  dispensed  justice  at  all  the  chief 
centres  of  the  Santal  population,  besides  going  regu- 
larly on  circuit  through  the  villages.     Justice  was 

^*  Joint  Report  of  the  Magistrate  and  Collector  of  Beerbhoom 
to  the  Commissioner  of  the  Burdwan  division,  No.  145,  dated  2Sth 
August  1855.     B.  R.  R. 


THE  INSURRECTION  PUT  DO  \VN.  253 

made  cheap,  and  brought  close  to  every  man's  door  ; 
and  contemporary  writers  complained  that  Govern- 
ment had  almost  sanctioned  the  rebellion  by  grant- 
ing all  that  the  rebels  had  fought  for. 

The  traditional  coldness  of  the  Bengal  Govern- 
ment to  opinions  outside,  if  it  had  led  to  unwise 
leniency  at  the  commencement  of  the  insurrection, 
averted  the  most  serious  crimes  at  its  close.  To 
the  public  no  punishment  seemed  too  cruel  for  men 
who  had  remained  in  open  rebellion  during  six 
months,  burned  towns,  and  forcibly  occupied  dis- 
tricts within  a  hundred  miles  of  Calcutta.  It  is  per- 
haps unfair  to  quote  from  the  daily  press  articles 
written  in  the  excitement  of  the  moment ;  but  how 
fierce  and  deeply  rooted  was  the  resentment  of  the 
Anglo-Indian  community,  may  be  gathered  from  an 
essay,  written  at  leisure  after  all  was  over,  for  the 
Review  which  worthily  occupies  the  first  place 
among  Indian  periodicals  :  '  A  wild  barbarian  sud- 
denly admitted  into  the  social  intercourse  of  his 
superior  in  the  grades  of  the  human  family,  nearly 
resembles  the  adult  tiger  withdrawn  from  his  lair 
and  his  haunts  in  the  jungle.'  In  short,  no  one 
knew  anything  about  the  wrongs  or  the  peaceful 
industry  of  the  Santals.  They  were  simply  'adult 
tigers'  or  '  bloodthirsty  savages  ;'  and  the  reviewer, 
dismissing  the  ordinary  plan  of  punishing  only  the 
actual  rebels  as  insufficient,  adopts  a  proposal  to 
deport  across  the  seas,  not  one  or  two  ringleaders, 
but  the  entire  population  of  the  infected  districts.** 

*^  Calcutta  Review,  March  1856. 


2  54  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

Such  clamours  are  naturally  to  be  expected  from 
a  community  in  the  position  which  a  handful  of 
our  countrymen  occupy  in  India.  They  in  no  way 
disturbed  the  action  of  the  Government.  The  San- 
tals  had  the  chance  of  a  regular  trial,  and  only  those 
suffered  who  had  taken  actual  part  in  the  rebellion. 
Most  of  them  displayed  great  fortitude,  owning  with 
pride  their  share  in  the  proceedings,  and  blaming 
the  ignorance  of  Government  as  the  cause  of  the 
war.  *  You  forced  us  to  fight  against  you,'  said  one 
of  their  leaders  in  the  Beerbhoom  jail.  '  We  asked 
only  what  was  fair,  and  you  gave  us  no  answer. 
When  we  tried  to  get  redress  by  arms,  you  shot  us 
like  leopards  in  the  jungle.'^^ 

The  wrongs  of  the  Santals  proceeded  chiefly  from 
the  inefficiency  of  the  administration,  and  they 
speedily  disappeared  under  the  more  exact  system 
that  was  introduced  after  the  revolt.  Without  re- 
course to  pernicious  and  ineffectual  usury  laws,  the 
abuses  of  the  usurers  were  checked  at  the  point 
where  high  interest  passes  into  extortion.  The 
Hindu  money-lender  might  charge  as  high  rates  as 
he  could  get,  but  the  law  took  care  that  the  same 
debts  should  not  be  paid  twice  or  thrice  over  as 
before,  and  the  courts  were  close  at  hand  to  force 
the  fraudulent  creditor  to  give  receipts  for  the  sums 
repaid  him.  False  weights  and  measures  were 
heavily  visited  ;  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  history 
the  Santal  sold  his  harvest  in  the  open  market-place 

^^  A  few  official  papers  on  the  Santal  insurrection  will  be  found 
in  Appendix  K. 


SLA  VER  V  ABOLISHED.  2  5  5 

without  the  certainty  of  being  cheated.  Slavery 
also  ceased.  The  courts  construed  very  strictly  the 
Act  of  1843  on  the  subject ;  and  before  1858  it  had 
become  apparent  that  if  a  slave  fled,  or  refused  to 
work,  his  master  had  no  effectual  recourse  at  law 
against  him.  The  demand  for  workmen  on  the 
railways  completely  changed  the  relation  of  labour 
to  capital.  Not  many  years  before,  it  had  been  a 
good  thing  for  a  Santal  to  be  the  serf  of  a  powerful 
master  ;  but  now  he  could  earn  a  competence  as  a 
freeman.  The  natural  reason  for  slavery — to  wit, 
the  absence  of  a  wage-fund  for  free  workmen — 
was  no  longer  felt,  and  slavery  itself  disappeared. 
The  Indian  railways  are  frequently  cited  as  proofs 
of  how  Englishmen  can  carry  out  great  and  untried 
enterprises  in  the  furthest  parts  of  the  world.  Such 
proofs  they  undoubtedly  are  ;  but  to  a  person  on 
the  spot,  it  seems  that  the  railway's  chief  mission 
in  India  has  been,  not  so  much  to  ac^orrandize  our 
own  race,  as  to  restore  the  balance  between  labour 
and  capital  among  the  native  population,  and  to 
root  out  slavery  from  the  land, 

A  discovery  had  meanwhile  been  made  in  the 
remote  north-east  frontier  of  Bengal,  which  was 
destined  still  furtlier  to  improve  the  position  of  the 
Santals  and  similar  tribes  in  the  west.  The  tea 
plant  had  been  found  growing  wild  throughout 
Assam  and  the  neighbouring  provinces.  The  first 
attempts  at  cultivating  it  were  yielding  enormous 
profits,  but  the  absence  of  labourers  forbade  the 
hopes   of   raising  it  on  a  large   scale.      The   most 


2  56  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

fertile  provinces  in  the  world  lay  waste,  waiting 
for  inhabitants,  when  capitalists  bethought  them- 
selves of  the  crowded  highlands  on  the  west,  and 
began  to  recruit  armies  of  labourers  among  them. 
The  transport  of  large  bodies  of  men  everywhere 
requires  supervision  ;  but  in  India,  unless  the 
supervision  be  of  the  most  careful  character,  the 
loss  of  life  is  appalling.  The  hill-men  knew  nothing 
of  the  dangers  which  beset  them  on  their  journey 
through  the  valley  and  up  the  eastern  rivers,  and 
the  recruiters  who  superintended  their  transmission 
knew  very  little  more.  As  the  labour  transport 
trade  increased,  the  accommodation  for  conveying 
the  coolies  became  alarmingly  inadequate.  They 
made  the  passage  in  crowded  open  boats,  or  in 
still  more  fatally  crowded  steamers,  without  the 
least  attention  to  cleanliness  or  proper  diet,  and 
sometimes  without  medical  assistance  of  any  sort. 
On  several  trips  the  mortality  attracted  the  notice 
of  Government,  and  it  became  necessary  to  place 
the  whole  system  under  the  superintendence  of 
public  officers.  Care  was  taken  that  no  labourer 
should  be  removed  from  his  village  under  false 
pretences  or  by  compulsion.  On  leaving  his  native 
district  he  had  to  appear  before  a  magistrate,  who 
asked  him  whether  he  was  willing  to  go,  and 
explained  the  nature  of  the  service  on  which  he 
was  about  to  enter.  If  the  recruiter  had  deceived 
the  labourer,  the  latter  could  at  this  stage  obtain 
his  discharge,  and  an  allowance  for  the  expenses 
of  his  journey  home.     The   term    of  service  was 


THEY  PEOPLE  THE  TEA- DISTRICTS.         257 

eventually  fixed  at  three  years,  during  which  the 
planter  guaranteed  the  labourer  constant  employ- 
ment at  wages  about  twice  as  high  as  those  which 
prevail  in  his  own  country.  The  planter  had  also 
to  pay  the  cost  of  his  journey,  provide  a  house  for 
him,  with  medical  attendance,  and  all  other  ap- 
pliances which  tend  to  keep  the  human  frame  in 
health.  His  whole  family  gets  employment,  and 
every  additional  child,  instead  of  being  the  means 
of  increasing  his  poverty,  becomes  a  source  of 
wealth.  The  labour  is  the  licjhtest  known  to  aeri- 
culture,  and  as  soon  as  a  boy  can  walk  he  can 
earn  his  living. 

Migration  has  therefore  become  justly  popular 
among  the  highlanders  of  the  west,  and  thousands 
of  them  are  conveyed  every  month  to  the  distant 
provinces  in  the  east."  The  planters  complained 
at  first  that  the  Government  supervision  was  op- 
pressively minute  ;  but  after  several  changes,  a 
system  of  labour  transport  has  been  developed, 
without  a  parallel  for  humanity  and  efficiency 
in  any  other  country  in  the  world.  The  Santal 
has  not  benefited  by  it  so  much  as  some  of  the 
kindred  races,  for  he  is  less  sturdy  than  the  true 
highlander  of  the  upper  table-land,  and  bears  with 
difficulty  a  sudden  change  of  climate.  The  lower 
sort  of  recruiters,  however,  collect  large  bands  in  the 
Santal  country,  and  pass  them  off  upon  the  planters 

^"^  I  have  no  complete  returns,  but  in  1865,  when  ex  officio  super- 
intendent of  labour  transport  at  Kooshtea,  I  estimated  the  number  at 
3000  a  month.  In  July  it  amounted  to  3827,  in  May  to  3236  adult 
labourers,  or,  including  children,  to  about  4000  souls. 

VUL.  I.  K 


2s8  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

as  belonging  to  some  other  of  the  hardier  hill- 
tribes. 

In  a  few  years  the  emigrants  return  rich  men, 
and  meanwhile  their  going  away  renders  the  struggle 
for  life  easier  among  their  countrymen  who  remain 
at  home.  While  one  stream  flows  steadily  to  the 
north-east  frontier,  another  diverges  at  Calcutta, 
and  crosses  over  the  sea  to  the  Mauritius  or  the 
West  Indies,  whence  they  return  at  the  expiry  of 
their  contracts  with  savings  averaging  ^20  sterling, 
a  sum  sufficient  to  set  up  a  Santal  as  a  considerable 
proprietor  in  his  own  village.  The  more  industrious 
of  the  emigrants  amass  very  considerable  properties, 
a  single  family  sometimes  bringing  back  ^200, 
which  is  as  great  a  fortune  to  the  hill-men  of 
Western  Bengal  as  ^5000  would  be  to  an  English 
peasant. 

The  civilisation  of  the  Santal  has  by  no  means 
kept  pace  with  his  material  prosperity.  The  only 
vigorous  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  State  to  give 
him  education,  has  been  in  the  half-Hinduized 
colony  within  the  ring  of  pillars  in  the  north  ;  and 
the  vehicle  of  instruction  is  Bengali,  a  lanouaee 
which  the  pure  Santal  abhors.  What  zeal  and 
patience  could  do,  the  missionaries,  aided  by  the 
Government  grants,  have  done  for  the  mixed  Santals 
of  that  part ;  but  if  the  race  is  ever  to  be  won  back 
to  civilisation,  it  must  be  by  strictly  vernacular 
schools.  A  learned  missionary  in  the  south  has 
reduced  their  language  to  writing,  published  its 
grammar,   with  a  vocabulary  appended,  and  ever)' 


DANGERS  OF  IGNORANCE.  259 

month  issues  little  Santal  tracts  from  his  private 
press.  Schools  have  sprung-  up  in  his  immediate 
vicinity,  to  which  the  Santals  flock  to  learn  their 
mother  tongue  ;  but  he  is  hampered  for  want  of 
funds,  and  unless  the  State  assist  the  operations 
by  a  grant,  their  extension  on  an  adequate  scale 
can  hardly  be  hoped  for. 

I  have  dwelt  at  considerable  lenofth  on  the 
Beerbhoom  highlanders,  partly  on  account  of  the 
valuable  lig^ht  which  their  lanoruagre  and  customs 
shed  upon  the  non-Aryan  element  in  the  rural 
population  of  Bengal,  partly  for  the  instruction 
which  their  recent  history  furnishes  as  to  the  pro- 
per method  of  dealing  with  the  aboriginal  races. 
The  Indian  Government  cannot  afford  any  longer 
to  be  unacquainted  with  the  character,  condition, 
and  necessities  of  these  primitive  forest-tribes  who 
everywhere  surround  our  frontier,  and  whose  ethni- 
cal kindred  form  so  important  an  element  of  the 
population  on  the  plains.  In  the  old  times,  when 
war  and  pestilence  constantly  thinned  them,  the 
system  of  non-inquiry  acted  tolerably  well ;  but  now 
that  peace  is  sternly  imposed,  when  vaccination  is 
introduced,  and  everything  is  done  that  modern 
science  can  suofOfest  to  reduce  the  ravaofes  of 
pestilence  to  a  minimum,  the  people  increase  at 
a  rate  that  threatens  to  render  the  stru^Me  for 
life  harder  under  British  rule  than  under  Mussul- 
Hian  tyranny.  At  the  same  time,  we  have  taken 
away  slavery,  the  last  resource  of  the  cultivator 
when   he   cannot   earn  a   livelihood   for   his   famil)-. 


2  6o  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

In  short,  we  are  attempting  to  govern  according  to 
the  principles  of  Christian  humanity  and  modern 
civiHsation,  forgetful  that  under  such  a  system  the 
numbers  of  a  people  increase,  while  in  India  the 
means  of  subsistence  stand  still.  Progress  implies 
dangers  unknown  in  stationary  societies,  and  an 
imported  civilisation  is  a  safe  experiment  only 
when  the  chancres  which  it  works  are  ascertained 
and  provided  for.  In  the  absence  of  machinery 
for  discovering  the  pressure  of  the  population,  we 
are  liable  at  any  moment  to  be  rudely  awakened 
to  the  fact  that  the  blessings  of  British  rule  have 
been  turned  into  curses ;  and,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Santals  before  their  rising,  that  protection  from  the 
sword  and  pestilence  has  only  intensified  the  diffi- 
culty of  subsistence.  Statistics  form  an  indispens- 
able complement  of  civilisation ;  but  at  present  we 
have  no  reliable  means  of  ascertaining  the  popula- 
tion of  a  single  district  of  rural  Bengal,  the  quantity 
of  food  it  produces,  or  any  one  of  those  items  which 
as  a  whole  render  a  people  prosperous  and  loyal, 
or  hungry  and  seditious.  These  are  the  problems 
which  Indian  statesmen  during  the  next  fifty  years 
will  be  called  upon  to  solve.  Their  predecessors 
have  given  civilisation  to  India;  it  will  be  their  duty 
to  render  that  civilisation  at  once  beneficial  to  the 
natives  and  safe  for  ourselves. 


C LIVES  'MASKED'  ADMINISTRATION.      261 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE  company's  first  attempts  at  rural 

ADMINISTRATION,     I765-179O. 

T  N  1 784,^  Parliament,  dissatisfied  with  the  constant 
■^  changes  in  the  government  of  the  East  India 
Company's  territories,  and  moved  by  the  griev- 
ances of  '  divers  rajahs,  zemindars,  polygars,  and 
other  native  landholders,'  directed  the  establish- 
ment of  '  permanent  rules  for  the  administration  of 
justice  founded  on  the  ancient  laws  and  usages  of 
the  country.'  During  thirty  years  the  Court  of 
Directors  had  vacillated  between  the  employment 
of  English  or  of  native  officers  in  the  internal 
management  of  Bengal.  '  To  ajDpoint  the  Com- 
pany's servants  to  the  office  of  collectors,'  wrote 
Clive  to  the  Select  Committee  in  1767,  'or  to  do 
any  act  by  any  exertion  of  the  English  power, 
which  can  be  equally  done  by  the  nabob,  would  be 
throwing  off  the  mask,  and  declaring  the  Company 
soubah  (governor)  of  the  province.'  Accordingly, 
for  the  first  four  years  after  the  emperor  at  Delhi 
had  invested  the  Company  with  the  management 
*  24  Geo.  ni.  c.  25,  b.  39. 


2  62  TJIE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

of  Bengal,  this  system  of  a  double  administration 
was  upheld,  and  the  actual  work  of  government 
remained  in  the  hands  of  natives.  But  a  conviction 
had  gradually  made  its  way  among  the  most  expe- 
rienced servants  of  the  Company,  that  this  shirking 
of  our  responsibilities  was  both  unmanly  and  im- 
politic. Mr.  Hoi  well,  the  principal  survivor  of  the 
Black  Hole,  and  its  chronicler,  declared  himself 
strongly  on  the  subject  :  '  We  have  nibbled  at  these 
provinces  for  eight  years,  and  notwithstanding  an 
immense  acquisition  of  territory  and  revenue,  what 
benefit  has  resulted  from  our  successes  to  the  Com- 
pany ?  Shall  we  go  on  nibbling  and  nibbling  at 
the  bait,  until  the  trap  falls  and  crushes  us  ?  .  .  . 
Let  us  boldly  dare  to  be  soubahs  ourselves.' ' 

It  was  not  till  1769,  however,  that  English 
supervisors  were  appointed  to  each  of  the  great 
divisions  of  the  province.  From  these  gentlemen 
— too  few  in  number  to  exercise  an  accurate  over- 
sight upon  any  single  department — the  Council 
expected  an  exhaustive  control  over  the  whole 
internal  administration.  Their  principal  function 
was  to  act  as  '  some  check  to  the  ofross  mismanasje- 
ment  and  extortion  practised  by  those  who  levied, 
and  to  the  fraudulent  evasion  of  those  who  paid,  the 
assessment.''^  But  fiscal  duties  formed  only  a  small 
part  of  their  office.  They  were  to  be  not  so  much 
revenue  officers  as  antiquarians,  historians,  and  rural 

^  Quoted  from  Mr.  Kaye's  Administration  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany, p.  79.     8vo,  1853. 

^  Life  of  Lord  Teignmouth,  by  his  Son,  p.  32,  vol.  i.     8vo,  1843. 


THE  SUPERVISORS,   1769-17 7 2.  263 

statisticians.  The  Government  furnished  them  with 
the  heads  of  a  few  essays  which  they  might  begin 
upon  at  once.  '  The  form  of  the  ancient  constitu- 
tion of  the  province,  compared  with  the  present;' 
'  an  account  of  its  possessors  or  rulers,  the  order  of 
their  succession,  the  revolutions  in  their  families, 
and  their  connections  ;  the  peculiar  customs  and  pri- 
vileges which  they  or  their  people  have  established 
and  enjoyed  ;  and,  in  short,  every  transaction  which 
can  serve  to  trace  their  origin  and  progress,  or  has 
produced  any  material  change  in  the  affairs  of  the 
province.'^  Having  brought  these  simple  historical 
researches  to  a  satisfactory  conclusion,  they  were  to 
proceed  to  the  investigation  of  the  land  tenures  and 
of  the  revenues,  to  distinguish  rapidly  and  infallibly 
between  customary  cesses  and  illegal  extortions,  to 
submit  a  scheme  for  the  administration  of  justice,  to 
draw  up  a  list  of  the  products  of  the  province,  to 
report  on  its  commercial  capabilities,  not  forgetting 
an  exhaustive  account  of  tl>e  means  of  developing 
its  internal  resources,  with  suggestions  for  removing 
those  multitudinous  obstructions  between  the  pro- 
ducer and  the  consumer,  which  had  so  fatally  damped 
the  spirit  of  industry  under  Mussulman  misrule. 
Their  leisure  hours,  which  the  Council  seems  to 
have  expected  would  hang  heavily,  the  supervisors 
might  beguile  by  acting  as  fathers  to  the  people, 
jjrotecting  the  weak  against  the  strong,  helping  the 
cultivators  to  improve  their  land,  the  merchants  to 

*   I'rocccdings  of  the  I'lcsidcnt  and  Select  Committee,  dated   16th 
August  1769. 


264  TJIR  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

extend  their  trade,  the  manufacturers  to  increase 
their  products,  and  all  classes  to  be  wiser  and 
better  than  before.  They  were  also  to  impress 
upon  the  agriculturist,  '  in  the  most  forcible  and 
convincing  manner,'  that  the  Company's  measures 
were  devised  for  his  relief,  and  that  opposition  to 
them  would  only  be  *  riveting  his  own  chains,  and 
confirming  his  servitude  and  dependence  on  his 
oppressors.'^ 

In  short,  the  supervisors  were  expected  to  do 
more  than  they  could  possibly  accomplish,  and  the 
result  was  that  they  did  less  than  they  might  have 
done.  During  their  first  year  of  oiifice,  the  great 
famine  described  in  Chapter  I.  befell  Bengal ;  and 
no  one  can  read  that  tragical  narrative  without  feel- 
ing that  British  humanity  and  administrative  skill 
had  not  yet  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  rural 
masses.  While  ten  millions  of  men  were  being 
swept  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  the  supervisors 
devoted  themselves  with  assiduity  to  antiquarian  or 
statistical  essays  ;  and,  with  a  few  noble  exceptions, 
the  frequent  allusions  they  make  to  the  sad  scenes 
amid  which  their  literary  labours  were  conducted, 
are  introduced  not  as  the  one  urgent  business  of 
the  day,  but  as  connected  with  the  revenues,  or  the 
state  of  cultivation,  or  whatever  else  formed  the 
main  subject  of  the  report.  For  two  years  longer 
the  internal  government  remained  as  completely  in 
the  hands  of  the  natives  as  under  Clive's  '  double ' 

^  Proceedings  of  the  President  and  Select  Committee,  dated  i6lh 
August  1769.     Quoted  from  Mr.  Kaye's  Administration,  p.  164. 


HASTINGS  PLAN,  1772.  265 

system.  '  Black  collectors  '  ground  down  the 
peasantry,  and  the  revenue-farmers  divided  their 
energies  between  concocting  frauds  upon  the  Go- 
vernment and  devising  illegal  cesses  to  be  wrung 
out  of  the  artisans  and  cultivators.  But  on  the 
13th  of  April  1772,  John  Cartier  made  over  charge 
of  the  province  to  Warren  Hastings,^  and  before  the 
end  of  the  month  a  momentous  change  had  taken 
place.  The  new  President  boldly  accepted  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  empire,  and  on  the  4th  of  May  the 
East  India  Company,  by  a  solemn  act,  stood  forth 
as  the  visible  governors  of  Bengal.  Committees  of 
circuit,  composed  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  Council, 
journeyed  from  district  to  district,  careless  of  the 
deadly  heat  of  summer  and  the  more  deadly 
malaria  of  the  rains,  investigated  the  capabilities 
and  necessities  of  each  division  on  the  spot,  ad- 
justed the  revenues,  and  righted  ancient  wrongs 
with  a  strong  hand.  When  the  Commissioners  re- 
turned to  the  capital  and  compared  the  results  of 
their  labours,  it  was  found  that  the  supervisors  had 
failed  to  do  the  work  for  which  they  had  been 
appointed.  About  the  same  time,  the  Court  of 
Directors  wrote  an  indignant  letter,  complaining 
that  the  supervisors  had  brought  the  province  to  a 
more  miserable  state  than  even  that  in  which  they 
had  found  it.  Before  this  letter  had  reached  India, 
however,  their  fate  had  been  sealed. 

In    1772   the  intermediate  machinery  of  'black 

"  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
dated  13th  April  1772,  para.  9.     I.  O.  R. 


266  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

collectors '  between  the  taxpayer  and  the  super- 
visors was  abolished,  and  these  latter  became  the 
collectors  of  the  land  revenue,  vested  with  the 
powers  of  civil  judges  within  their  respective  dis- 
tricts, and  with  a  limited  control  over  the  native 
officials,  who  still  retained  their  magisterial  and 
police  functions.^  Two  years,  however,  had  scarcely 
elapsed  before  the  old  system  was  reverted  to ;  the 
Enoflish  collectors  were  recalled,  their  duties  trans- 
ferred  to  native  agents,  and  the  police  made  en- 
tirely over  to  the  hereditary  Foujdars.®  In  1781, 
the  Foujdars,  who  had  thus  been  reinstated  in 
1775,  were  in  their  turn  abolished,  and  their  duties 
vested  in  the  civil  judge,  or  in  the  chief  landholder 
in  the  neighbourhood,  according  to  the  caprice  of 
the  secretary  who  happened  to  be  in  office.  Mean- 
while Hastings  had  directed  his  energies  in  another 
direction  than  internal  reforms ;  system  existed 
nowhere,  and  the  following  year  brought,  as  usual, 
a  change.^  At  last  the  murmurs  of  the  people 
reached  the  ears  of  Parliament,  and  drew  forth 
the  Act  of  1 784.^'' 

The  construction  of  a  permanent  system  for  the 
internal  administration  of  Bengal  had  become  so 
important,  and   the   opposition   promised  to  be   so 

^  Warren  Hastings'  Plan  of  1772  (formally  adopted  on  the  21st 
August),  sees.  I  and  2. 

^  Fifth  Report  of  the  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
p.  6.     1812. 

^  The  Administration  of  Justice  in  British  India,  by  W.  H.  Morley, 
]>arrister-at-Law,  p.  52.     8vo,  1858. 

^**  In  treating  of  this  period  of  harassing  change,  Auber  is,  accord- 
ing to  his  wont,  complacent.  Mill  querulous,  and  Morley  exact. 


THE  TENTATIVE  SYSTE.U,   17S6-90.  267 

great,  that  the  task  was  committed  to  a  peer  of 
the  reahn.  '  On  Monday  last,'  says  the  Calcutla 
Gazette  oi  \\\^  14th  September  1786,  'arrived  in  the 
river  the  Right  Honourable  the  Earl  of  Cornwallis, 
and  on  Tuesday  he  came  on  shore.'  The  new 
Governor-General  carried  with  him  instructions  to 
frame  a  system  of  government  in  accordance  with 
the  usages  of  the  country.  But  he  speedily  dis- 
covered that,  in  order  to  do  this,  he  had  first  to 
ascertain  what  those  usages  really  were,  and  that 
the  ruinous  changes  of  the  past  twenty  years  had 
chiefly  proceeded  from  the  hasty  adoption  of  suc- 
cessive systems  on  insufficient  data.  But  with 
regard  to  the  agency  by  which  the  country  was 
to  be  administered,  Lord  Cornwallis  wavered  not 
a  moment.  He  decided  that  En^-lish  officers  must 
be  at  the  head  of  every  department,  both  in 
the  capital  and  in  the  provinces,  and  that  natives 
were  trustworthy  only  so  far  as  they  could  be 
strictly  watched. ^^  During  the  first  three  years  of 
his  government,  he  confined  his  attention  to  collect- 
ing evidence  on  which  at  a  future  date  to  base  a 
permanent  system,  and  to  this  end  remodelled  the 
divisions  of  Bengal,  placing  each  district  under  an 
experienced  English  officer,  in  whom  he  concen- 
trated the  whole  functions  of  government — fiscal, 
civil,  criminal,  and  police. ^^ 

It  was  to  this  measure  that  Beerbhoom  owed  its 

"  It  should  be  remembered  that  if  Bengali  oflicials  under  Mussul- 
man rule  were  corrupt,  they  were  also  for  the  most  part  unpaid,  and 
had  grown  accustomed  to  making  their  livelihood  by  oppression. 

^2  MS.  Records  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  Calcutta.     Selections 


2  68  rilE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  L3ENGAL. 

existence  as  a  separate  district.  Mr.  Christopher 
Keating,  as  collector,  magistrate,  and  civil  judge, 
rided  with  an  absolute  sway  over  seven  thousand 
five  hundred  square  miles,^^  and  made  his  policy 
felt  by  the  hill-tribes  many  a  day's  march  beyond 
his  frontier.  The  district  naturally  divided  itself 
into  two  parts  :  the  Rajah  of  Beerbhoom's  terri- 
tory on  the  north  of  the  Adji,  and  the  Rajah  of 
Bishenpore's  on  the  south. ^^  Mr.  Keating  directed 
the  movements  of  the  troops,  received  the  rent  of 
the  cultivators,  decided  civil  suits,  purveyed  for 
military  detachments  passing  through  his  district, 
inflicted  punishment  on  petty  offenders,  sent  heinous 
ones  in  chains  to  the  Muhammadan  law  officer,  and 
acted  as  cashier  to  a  great  commercial  company. 
It  would  be  unreasonable  to  look  for  perfect  finish 
in  walls  whose  builders  held  the  plummet  in  one 
hand  and  the  sword  in  the  other ;  and  if  the  admini- 
stration of  such  men  as  Mr.  Keating  was  effective 
on  the  whole,  it  is  as  much  as  an  after  generation 
which  works  at  greater  leisure  and  with  more  com- 
plete machinery  has  a  right  to  expect. 

The  realization  of  the  revenue  formed  the  col- 


fiom  Calcutta  Gazette  (1786),  vol.  i.  pp.  185,  186.  Morley,  pp.  53,  54. 
The  only  limitations  on  the  collector's  powers  were  in  regard  to  his 
magisterial  and  police  functions.  These  will  be  subsequently  ex- 
plained. 

^3  This  calculation  is  based  on  the  maps  published  by  the  Survey 
Department. 

"  Beerbhoom  and  the  hill-countrj'  subject  thereto,  but  now  com- 
prised within  the  Santa!  purgunnahs,  130  miles  by  40,  or  5200  square 
miles.  Bishenpore,  now  part  of  Bancorah  and  Midnapore,  2300 
square  miles.     Total  area  of  the  united  district,  7500  square  miles. 


ITS  CHEAPNESS.  269 

lector's  paramount  duty,  and  on  his  success  in  this 
respect,  rather  than  on  the  prosperity  of  the  people, 
his  reputation  as  an  officer  depended.  The  Council 
still  acted  to  a  certain  extent  as  if  Beneal  were  an 

o 

estate  which  yielded  a  large  rental,  but  involved 
none  of  the  responsibilities  of  government,  and 
regarded  its  rural  administrators  rather  as  the  land- 
stewards  of  a  private  property,  than  as  the  channels 
for  receiving  and  redistributing  a  public  revenue. 
It  was  a  matter  of  the  first  importance,  therefore, 
to  get  as  much  out  of  the  district,  and  to  spend  as 
little  upon  it,  as  possible.  In  1788  the  total  cost  of 
governing  Beerbhoom  and  Bishenpore  amounted  to 
^5400  sterling,^^  or  fourteen  shillings  and  sixpence 
the  square  mile.  At  present  the  area  of  the  district 
has  been  reduced  to  less  than  one-third,'"  and  the 
cost  of  administration  has  increased  to  ^24,869 
sterling,^^  or  ^10,  13s.  6d.  per  square  mile.  The 
difference  between  the  old  and  the  new  view  of  our 
duties  as  rural  administrators  is  placed  in  a  still 
stronger  light  by  analyzing  the  items  of  expendi- 
ture. In  1788  the  charge  for  the  collection  of  the 
land-tax  was  ^4500,^^  in   1864  it  was  only  ^1^3550. 

^^  The  estimated  monthly  expenditure  was  sicca  rupees  4394, 
or  as  near  as  may  be  C.  R.  54,00  per  annum.  For  the  items,  sec 
Appendix  L.,  'Cost  of  Internal  Administration  before  the  Permanent 
Settlement.' 

'^^  Bishenpore  and  the  hill- pur<;unnahs  having  been  separated 
from  Beerbhoom,  the  area  of  the  present  jurisdiction  is  now  2330 
square  miles.  Report  on  the  Police  of  the  Burdwan  Division  for 
the  Year  1863,  by  C.  F.  Montrdsor,  Esq.,  Commissioner,  p.  17. 
Folio.     Bn.  R. 

"  Budget  estimate  for  1864-65.     B.  R.  R. 

18  S.  R.  3585  per  mensem.     Collector's  Bills,  1788-89.     B.  R.  R. 


2  70  THK  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

In  1788  the  charge  for  civil  justice  was  £'jo%  ;^'^  it 
is  now  £']i6o.  In  1788  the  cost  of  the  criminal 
administration  was  ^318^"  only;  in  1864  it  was 
£()()20?^  In  everything  which  pertains  to  the 
mere  gathering  of  the  taxes,  the  expense  has  dimi- 
nished ;  for  the  public  burdens  bear  less  heavily 
on  the  people,  and  are  consequently  more  easily 
collected.  In  everything  which  pertains  to  the 
protection  of  the  subject,  the  charge  has  increased 
from  ten  to  thirty  fold.  The  English  have  ceased 
to  be  the  publicani,  and  have  become  the  governors 
of  Benpfal. 

The  Rajah  of  Beerbhoom  held  the  territory  on 
the  north  of  the  Adji  at  an  annual  land-tax  of 
^65,000,"  or  twelve  pounds  a  square  mile,  including 
the  forest  and  hill  tracts.  As  a  full  half  of  the  land 
fell  under  these  categories,  the  Government  rent 
amounted  to  ninepence  on  each  cultivable  acre. 
The  Rajah  of  Bishenpore's  estates  on  the  south  of 
the  Adji  were  assessed  at  ^40,000,"^  being  equal  to 
^17,  8s.  per  square  mile,  or  allowing  the  same 
deduction  for  waste  land,  to  one  shilling  per  acre. 
The  rajahs  were  left  to  bargain  with  the  cultivators 
about  the  rents  of  their  multitudinous  little  holdings, 

19  S.  R.  556  per  mensem.     Monthly  Bills,  1788-89.     B.  R.  R, 
-**  S.  R.  250  per  mensem.     As  the  value  of  the  sicca  rupee  was 
constantly  changing,  I  have  not  attempted  to  give  the  exact  value  in 
English  money.     The  above  sums  are  within  a  pound  or  so. 

21  For  the  expenditure  of  1864-65,  see  Appendix  M.,    '  Present 
Cost  of  the  Administration  of  Beerbhoom.'     B.  R.  R. 

22  S.  R.  611,321,  Jamah-wasil-baki  of  1788-89,  forwarded  to  Board 
of  Revenue,  ist  May  1789.     B.  R.  R. 

"  S.  R.  386,707,  Jamah-wasil-baki  of  1788-89. 


THE  LAND-  TAX  BEFORE  1793.  271 

without  any  interference  on  the  part  of  Government, 
so  long-  as  they  punctually  discharged  the  public 
demands.  In  most  years,  however,  so  far  from 
paying  the  land-tax  punctually,  they  failed  to  pay 
a  considerable  portion  of  it  at  all,  and  the  col- 
lector had  constantly  to  assist  them  with  troops  to 
enforce  their  claims  on  the  under-tenants,  and  to  put 
down  armed  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  culti- 
vators." The  land-tax  was  subject  to  variation 
every  year,^''  and  the  proprietors  availed  themselves 
of  each  slight  increase  as  a  pretext  for  enhancing 
the  rents  of  their  tenants.  The  latter  complained 
that  they  never  knew  at  sowing  -  time  what  rent 
would  be  exacted  at  harvest,  as  the  middlemen 
concealed  the  fact  of  an  increase  until  the  peasantry 
were  fairly  embarked  in  the  cultivation  of  their 
fields.  A  glaring  instance  of  this  occurred  in 
1788-89.  The  land-tax  had  been  slightly  aug- 
mented, and  the  rents  raised  all  round  in  conse- 
quence. The  peasantry  resisted,  on  the  plea  that 
they  had  not  been  informed  of  the  rise  before 
the  seed  was  in  the  ground,  and  the  collector  had 
to  report  the  whole  district  in  arms  against  the 
new  assessment.^*'     Mr.   Keating's  Sepoys  speedily 

"^  From  Collector  to  John  Shore,  Esq.,  President  and  members  of 
the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  13th  February  1789.  Collector  to  Board 
of  Revenue,  dated  14th  April  1790.  Same  to  same,  25th  October 
1790  ;   and  in  many  other  letters.     B.  R.  R. 

^•'  Annual  Bandobusts  and  Hastaboods,  Board  of  Revenue. 
C.  O.  R. 

*"  Letter  from  the  Collector  to  John  Shore,  Esq.,  President  and 
members  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  13th  February  1789. 
1;.  R.  R. 


272  TTFE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

brought  those  who  resided  within  the  district  to 
reason,"  and  judicial  process  was  issued  through 
the  neighbouring  collectors  against  the  numerous 
cultivators  who,  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
times,  protected  their  goods  from  seizure  by  living 
just  beyond  the  boundary  of  the  district.  The 
neighbouring  collectors,  however,  were  anxious  to 
tempt  cultivators  to  settle  on  the  estates  which  the 
famine  of  1769  had  left  depopulated  in  their  own 
districts.  Protection  against  judicial  proceedings 
formed  the  most  alluring  bait  they  could  offer.  They 
therefore  declined  or  delayed  to  serve  Mr.  Keating's 
summonses.  An  angry  correspondence  followed,  the 
matter  was  handed  up  to  Government,  and  the  head 
assistants  of  the  militant  collectors  were  sent  out 
to  settle  the  question  on  the  boundaries  of  their 
respective  districts.-'^  After  hunting  together  for  a 
few  weeks,  they  came  to  the  conclusion  that  as  the 
cultivators  had  not  been  acquainted  with  the  rise  in 
the  land-tax,  and  consequently  could  not  have  fore- 
seen an  increase  of  rent  when  tillage  commenced, 
they  could  not  be  made  liable  for  any  subsequent 
enhancement  during  the  year.  Air.  Arbuthnot,  the 
Beerbhoom  assistant,  foreseeing  that  a  meeting  with 
the  collector  after  this  decision  would  not  be  plea- 
sant, remained  out  in  camp,  shooting  tigers  until 
he  got  appointed  to  another  district,  and  then 
hurried  down  to  Calcutta  to  take  the  oaths,  with- 

-"  Letter  from  the  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  25th 
October  1790.     B.  R.  R. 

^'^  From  Board  of  Revenue  to  Collector,  dated  lotli  May  1790. 
The  spot  selected  was  Dacca-Barry.     B.  R.  R. 


THE  EXCISE  BEFORE  1793.  273 

out  coming  into  headquarters  to  bid  Mr.  Keating 
good-bye."^ 

The  distribution  and  collection  of  the  land-tax 
will  fall  more  appropriately  to  be  considered  in  the 
volume  on  the  land  tenure.  The  authorities  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  details  as  long  as  the  public 
demand  was  satisfied.  In  event  of  a  hopeless  deficit, 
the  collector  imprisoned  the  landholder,  and  took 
charge  of  his  estates.  For  a  long  time  hopeless 
deficit  had  been  the  normal  condition  of  things  in 
Bengal,  and  no  country  gentlemen  was  sure  of 
keeping  out  of  jail  unless  he  were  an  idiot  or  a 
minor.  I  have  already  mentioned  that  the  earliest 
official  records  of  Beerbhoom  disclose  the  Rajah  of 
Bishenpore  in  confinement,^^  and  the  young  Rajah 
of  Beerbhoom  shared  the  same  fate  within  a  few 
months  after  he  came  of  age.^^ 

Besides  the  land-tax,  only  two  other  sources  of 
revenue  passed  through  the  collector's  hands — 
namely,  the  excise  and  the  temple-tax."'"  In  1790 
collectors  were  ordered  to  take  charge  of  the  spirit 
duty,  and  to  report  on  the  consumption  of  liquor  in 
their  respective  districts.''^     Until  this  year  the  tax 

2^  Letter  from  Mr.  George  Arbuthnot  to  the  Collector,  dated 
Dacca-Barry,  30th  June  1790.  Same  to  same,  dated  12th  July  1790, 
and  other  correspondence.     B.  R.  R. 

=">  From  Collector  to  John  Shore,  Esq.,  P.  and  M.B.R.,  dated  loth 
February  1789.     B.  R.  R. 

3'  From  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  12th  January  1791. 
From  same  to  same,  dated  ist  November  1791.     B.  R.  R. 

^^  The  temporary  order  to  collect  the  dues  and  exactions  known 
as  'Sayer'  was  not  carried  out  in  Beerbhoom. 

*^  Circular  order  from  the   Board  of  Revenue,  dated    19th  .Xpril 

VOL.   T.  S 


2  74  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

had  been  levied  sometimes  by  the  landholder  on  his 
own  account,  sometimes  by  the  collector,  and  some- 
times by  both.^*  It  was  a  very  difficult  impost  to 
levy  at  all.  The  native  stills  consisted  of  earthen 
pots  with  a  bamboo  tube,  worth  altogether  about  a 
farthing,  which  were  fixed  up  in  the  jungle  after 
dark,  worked  during  the  night,  and  broken  before 
sunrise.  In  1787  Mr.  Sherbourne  had  imposed  a 
tax  on  behalf  of  Government,  of  one  pound  on  each 
spirit  shop  in  the  district  capital,  and  eight  shillings 
on  every  shop  in  the  country,  leaving  the  vendors 
free  to  make  and  sell  as  much  as  they  could.  The 
Rajah  of  Bishenpore  levied  from  two  to  four 
shillings  on  each  shop  within  his  domains,  and  the 
Rajah  of  Beerbhoom  extorted  a  considerable 
revenue  as  the  price  of  permits  to  vend  spirits 
clandestinely  during  the  sacred  month  of  Ramzan.^^ 
The  spirit-dealer  who  resisted  this  exaction,  and 
ventured  to  sell  his  liquor  without  such  a  licence, 
was  dragged  before  the  Muhammadan  law  officer, 
bastinadoed,  or  heavily  fined. 

The  small  amount  of  revenue  produced  by  the 
Excise,  notwithstanding  the  number  of  the  imposts, 

1790.  The  original  has  dropped  out  of  the  records;  but  the  19th  of 
April  is  given  as  its  date  in  the  collectors  reply.  Like  many  other 
of  the  most  valuable  circulars,  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Peters 
edition  of  the  Board's  Circular  Orders,  printed  by  authority  in  1838, 
4to,  Calcutta. 

3*  Collector  to  Board,  dated  22d  May  1790.     B.  R.  R. 

^^  The  name  of  this  singular  impost  was  '  Soorie-Moosey-Koosey- 
Ramzan-Salami.'  It  is  described  in  a  report  on  Sayer,  dated  June 
1790,  from  which  document,  along  with  the  letter  of  the  22d  May 
above  cited,  this  account  of  the  Excise  is  chiefly  derived.     B.  R.  R. 


THE  EXCISE,  1789  AND  1865.  275 

speaks  very  plainly  as  to  the  looseness  and  inaccu- 
racy of  the  administration.  In  1789,  when  the  dis- 
trict was  three  times  its  present  size,  the  spirit  duty 
yielded  -^330  only  ;^^  in  1864-65  it  amounted  to 
^^5294,  or  nearly  twenty  times  the  previous  sum." 
This  rise  is  due  not  so  much  to  increased  consump- 
tion as  to  a  more  exact  vigilance  in  levying  the 
duty.  When  we  assumed  the  direct  administration 
of  the  district,  drunkenness  was  universal  among 
the  lower  orders.  The  excessive  cheapness  of 
liquor  pandered  to  the  craving  for  stimulants, — 
a  craving  always  sufficiently  strong  among  a  semi- 
aboriginal  population  like  that  of  Beerbhoom.  In- 
deed, drunkenness  formed  so  marked  a  feature  in 
the  Bengali  character,  as  to  be  specified  in  ancient 
treaties,  and  is  noticed  in  the  letters  and  diaries 
of  cursory  travellers  of  those  days.^®  One  of  the 
earliest  magistrates  of  Beerbhoom  has  left  it  on 
record,  that  almost  the  whole  serious  crime  of  the 
district  proceeded  from  this  vice.  Only  the  coarsest 
and  most  injurious  preparations  were  used.  A  half- 
penny purchased  six  quart  bottles  of  liquor  that 
would  madden  the  half-starved  hill-men  or  foresters. 


^^  Sicca  Rupees  3154. 

3^  Budget  estimate  for  1864-65  : 

Abkari, 

.    C.  R.  45,929 

Opium, 

7,018 

C.  R.  52,947.  B.  R.  R. 
88  For  example,  Mrs.  Fay,  after  a  few  days'  residence  in  Calcutta 
(1780),  remarks  on  the  immoderate  fondness  of  the  natives  for  liquor. 
Original  Letters  from  India,  p.  230.  8vo,  Calcutta  1817.  Meet 
Jaffier's  Perwanah  for  the  Granted  Lands,  1757.  Sanad  for  the 
Company's  Zamindari,  etc. 


276 


THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 


and  prepare  them  for  the  most  desperate  enterprises. 
The  effect  of  a  strict  enforcement  of  the  excise  in 
Beerbhoom  has  been  to  increase  the  price  of  the 
commoner  Hqiiors  sixfold,  and  to  introduce  into 
general  use  milder  sorts  unknown  in  the  district 
when  it  passed  under  British  rule.  Temperance 
has  become  a  necessity  to  the  people  ;  and  excepting 
among  the  semi-aboriginal  castes,  drunkenness  is 
unknown.  The  following  table  shows  the  retail 
prices  of  intoxicating  drinks  in  Beerbhoom  in  1  790 
and  1866  : — 


Native  Name. 

Description. 

Price  in  1790. 

Price  in  1866. 

Muhua  ka  sharab. 

A  sort  of  raisin  wine. 

Not  used. 

6d.  per  quart. 

Tari. 

Mild  fermented  liquor, 
extracted    from    the 
date  tree. 

Do. 

^d.  per  quart. 

Pakki,  1st  quality. 
Pakki,  2d  quality. 
Pachwai. 

Distilled  rice  liquor. 

Do. 
Fermented  rice  liquor. 

1 4d.  per  quart. 
|d.  per  quart. 
|d.  per  gallon. 

5d.  per  quart. 
4d.  per  quart. 
3d.  per  gallon. 

Mr.  Keating  reported^®  that  the  last  was  by 
far  the  most  pernicious.  *  To  its  cheapness,'  he 
writes,  '  I  ascribe  the  numerous  robberies  and  other 
depredations  almost  daily  experienced,  it  being  a 
notorious  fact  on  the  records  of  the  criminal  court, 
that  the  perpetrators  of  these  crimes  first  work 
themselves  up  to  the  perpetrating  of  them  by  this 
kind  of  liquor,  and  by  smoking  the  herb  called 
Bang.'  The  more  cowardly  sort  of  housebreakers 
in  India,  as  elsewhere,  still  resort  to  drugs  for  arti- 
ficial courage  ;  but  drunkenness,  as  a  prolific  source 

8®  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  22d  May  1790.     B.  R.  R. 


DR  UNKENNESS  NO  W  UNKNO  WN.  2  7  7 

of  crime,  is  now  unknown  in  Bengal.  During  nearly 
three  years'  residence  in  Beerbhoom  (1863-66),  only 
a  single  case  came  judicially  before  me  which  I 
could  trace  directly  or  indirectly  to  intemperance  ; 
and  I  believe  that  the  macristerial  officers  throueh- 
out  rural  Bengal  will  bear  similar  testimony  to  the 
sobriety  of  the  people.  The  hard-working  labourers, 
like  the  corresponding  classes  in  all  countries,  enjoy 
themselves  in  the  liquor  shop  after  their  day's  toil  ; 
but  the  most  violent  form  their  excitement  takes 
consists  of  making  profound  obeisances  to  every 
one  they  meet  on  their  way  home.  A  few  indi- 
viduals of  the  upper  classes,  who  have  thrown  off 
the  restraints  of  Hinduism,  are  accused  of  secretly 
indulging  in  English  spirits.  Such  cases,  however, 
do  not  come  before  a  court ;  and  I  repeat  with  con- 
fidence, what  can  be  said  of  no  European  country, 
that  drunkenness,  as  a  regular  element  of  crime, 
does  not  exist  in  Bengal.  Disputes  about  fisheries, 
boundaries,  water-courses,  and  precedence  in  reli- 
gious processions,  yield  an  unfailing  crop  of  mis- 
demeanours ;  but  although  nine-tenths  of  the  crime 
of  the  district  consists  of  assaults  and  similar  petty 
acts  of  violence,  it  never  appears  that  intemperance 
has  led  to  a  breach  of  the  peace.  Much  of  this  is 
due  to  a  well-administered  Excise.  Instead  of  the 
timid,  laxly-enforced  impost  of  eight  shillings  on 
each  shop,  with  liberty  to  make  as  much  liquor  as 
the  proprietor  could  sell.  Government  now  exacts 
a  heavy  duty  on  each  still  ;  and  at  every  point 
in  the  manufacture  or  vend  of  intoxicating  liquors, 


2  78  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

a  licence  is  required,  and  a  tax  has  to  be  paid. 
Occasionally  over-zealous  officers  of  the  lower  class 
lay  themselves  open  to  the  charge  of  increasing  the 
revenue  at  the  expense  of  the  sobriety  of  the  people  ; 
but,  as  a  whole,  the  efforts  to  maintain  the  price  of 
liquor  at  the  maximum  rate  consistent  with  the  pre- 
vention of  smuggling,  have  obtained  an  unusual 
measure  of  success.  In  Beerbhoom,  at  any  rate, 
the  legitimate  object  of  a  system  of  excise  seems  to 
have  been  attained,  namely — to  quote  the  opening 
words  of  the  instructions  issued  by  the  Bengal 
Government  to  its  revenue  officers — 'to  raise  as 
large  an  amount  of  revenue  from  intoxicating  liquors 
and  drugs  as  is  compatible  with  the  greatest  possible 
discouragement  of  their  use.'*" 

The  only  other  source  of  revenue  that  the  first 
English  administrators  discovered  and  appropriated 
in  Beerbhoom,  was  one  which,  although  insignificant 
compared  with  the  land-tax,  occupies  many  pages  of 
the  records,  and  is  peculiarly  characteristic  of  the 
time.  Among  the  solitudes  of  the  western  moun- 
tains, on  the  extreme  frontier  of  the  district,  is  a 
Holy  City,*^  with  its  ancient  temple  to  Mahadeva. 
whither  a  vast  concourse  of  pilgrims  annually  resort. 
The  Mussulman  dynasty  had  made  the  most  of  such 
opportunities  of  raising  revenue  at  the  expense  of 

*"  '  Rules  for  the  Regulation  of  the  Excise,'  prescribed  by  the 
Board  of  Revenue,  Lower  Provinces.  Rule  I.  The  present  prices 
of  spirituous  liquors  exhibited  in  the  foregoing  table  were  furnished 
to  me  by  Babu  Kinaram  Ghose,  zamindar  of  Nagri,  and  checked  by 
personal  inquiries  from  wine-sellers  and  palki-bearers. 

*^  Dcoghur — literally,  the  divine  city  or  house. 


THE  TEMPLE-TAX.  z-jc) 

the  unbeliever ;  and  their  historians  commend  the 
pious  Moorshud  for  his  attentions  to  the  great  idol 
of  Orissa,  by  which  he  restored  a  hundred  thousand 
sterling-  to  the  annual  revenue  of  that  province.*^ 
The  Rajahs  of  Beerbhoom  had  let  the  Holy  City 
to  the  chief  priest,  who  paid  a  fixed  rent,  and  made 
what  he  could  out  of  the  devotees.  The  early 
English  collectors  thought  they  could  increase  the 
impost  by  managing  the  temple  business  themselves. 
In  1788  Mr.  Hesilrigge,  the  head  assistant,  having 
been  deputed  to  the  Holy  City,  with  a  view  to 
carrying  out  the  change,  organized  a  numerous 
establishment  of  priests,  money-takers,  and  watch- 
men, at  the  expense  of  the  State.^^  It  was  found, 
however,  as  soon  as  the  temple  became  a  Go- 
vernment speculation,  either  that  the  liberality  of 
the  devotees  had  strangely  cooled,  or  that  the 
priests  must  be  embezzling  the  oblations.  The 
revenue  fell  off;  additional  officers  were  entertained 
to  watch  over  those  already  appointed  ;  but  the 
collector  still  complained  that  the  chief  priest  frus- 
trated his  vigilance  by  *  besetting  every  avenue  to 
the  temple  with  emissaries,  who  induced  the  pilgrims 
to  make  their  offerings  before  approaching  the 
shrine.'  This  became  at  length  a  source  of  so  much 
disquietude  to  Mr.  Keating's  strongly  fiscal  mind, 
that  he  determined  to  visit  the  temple,  in  order  to 
exert  his  personal  influence  in  stimulating  the  libe- 

^-  Nine  lacs  of  sicca  rupees.     Stewart's  History  of  Bengal,  p.  267. 

•••^  Report  of  the  Collector  to  the  Honourable  Charles  Stuart, 
President,  and  members  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  30th  May 
1790.     B.  R.  R. 


2 So  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

raKty  of  the  devotees,  and  in  checking  the  pecula- 
tions of  the  priests." 

Accordingly,  escorted  by  a  guard  of  thirty-five 
soldiers,  the  collector  started  on  the  morninof  of  the 
2 1  St  February  1791,  and,  allowing  for  the  stately 
pace  at  which  he  was  wont  to  travel,  reached  the 
Holy  City  about  a  week  later. *'^  '  I  pitched  my 
tent,'  he  writes,  '  in  the  midst  of  the  pilgrims,  and 
as  near  the  temple  as  possible,  where  I  attended 
daily,  and  was  an  eye-witness  so  far  as  the  con- 
fusion would  permit  me.'*^  '  At  the  stated  period 
the  doors"  of  the  temple  are  thrown  open,  and  the 
crowd  rush  in  tumultuously,  singing,  dancing,  pro- 
strating themselves  with  all  the  vociferations  and 
madness  of  enthusiastic  fervour.  Everything  is 
uproar  and  confusion.  The  offerings  of  bullion 
and  jewels,  constituting  the  most  valuable  [part  of 
the  presents],  are  now  made,  [being  cast  before  the 
face]  of  the  deity  Brijjanauth,  and  the  collecting 
Brahmans  have  an  opportunity  of  secreting  what 
they  please  without  fear  of  detection.'  The  cere- 
mony consisted  in  pouring  sacred  water  brought 
from  the  Gano-es   on  the  head  of  the  9od.     Zeal 


**  From  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  nth  January  1791. 
B.  R.  R. 

*^  MS.  folio,  labelled  '  Military  Correspondence,'  pp.  103,  104. 
B.  R.  R.  The  guard  consisted  of  thirty  Sepoys,  one  jemadar,  two 
havildars,  and  two  naiks.  The  distance  from  Soorie  to  Deoghur — 
— the  Holy  City — was  about  eighty  miles. 

*^  From  Collector  to  the  Honourable  Charles  Stuart,  President, 
and  members  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  2Sth  March  1791. 

^''  This  is  an  inaccuracy,  probably  an  error  in  transcription  :  the 
temple  had  then  only  one  small  door  for  the  entrance  of  pilgrims. 


THE  TEMPLE-  TAX,  HOW  LE  VIED.  2  S  i 

the  pilgrims  were  abundantly  gifted  with,  '  but  of 
wealth  among  any  of  them  there  was  no  appear- 
ance. Not  more  than  five  families  had  any  con- 
veyance or  hired  house  to  reside  in.  About  a 
hundred  had  simply  a  blanket  drawn  over  a  bamboo 
as  a  protection  from  the  weather  ;  and  the  rest,' 
varying  from  fifteen  to  fifty  thousand,  according  to 
the  season,  '  took  up  their  abode  under  the  adja- 
cent trees,  with  no  kind  of  conveniency  whatever. 
There  was  too  general  an  appearance  of  poverty 
to  suppose  that  the  temple  could  profit  much  from 
the  oblations  of  its  devotees,  and  little  could  be 
exoected  from  wretches  who  seemed  in  want  of 
every  necessary  of  life.''^^  It  was  from  this  desti- 
tute throng,  however,  that  an  increased  tax  had  to 
be  extorted.  Accordingly,  Mr,  Keating  appointed 
an  establishment  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  armed 
policemen  with  fifteen  officers. ^^  It  must  not  be 
supposed  that  any  protection  was  afforded  to  the 
pilgrims  in  return.  The  road  winded  round  the 
solitary  hills,  buried  for  miles  in  forest,  and  inter- 
sected at  short  intervals  by  deep  ravines  which 
formed  innumerable  caves,  swarming  with  robbers 
and  wild  beasts.  The  plunderers  carried  on  their 
depredations  undisturbed  by  the  magistrate  as  long 
as  they  did  not  entirely  close  the  path.  The  suffer- 
ings of  the  pilgrims,  however,  at  length  became  so 
intense  as  to  affect  the  popularity  of  the  shrine,  and 

*^  From  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  28th  March  1791. 
B.  R.  R. 

■•"  From  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  30th  May  1790,  etc. 
B.  R.  R. 


282  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

leave  them  nothing  to  offer  to  the  idol  when  they 
reached  the  Holy  City.  It  then  became  a  question 
of  revenue,  and  Mr.  K eating's  action  was  prompt. 
He  ordered  out  a  detachment  of  native  infantry  to 
act  against  the  banditti — '  reported  to  consist  of 
about  three  hundred  men' — who  had  plundered  a 
caravan  of  pilgrims,  killing  five  of  them,  'and  en- 
tirely stopped  up  the  road.'^*'  The  nature  of  the 
country  made  the  operation  a  difficult  one,  and 
the  commanding  officer  was  directed  to  furnish 
'  as  great  a  force  from  the  detachment  of  native 
infantry '  as  he  could  spare,  '  for  the  clearing  of 
the  jungle,'  The  unhappy  devotee  who  escaped 
the  bandits  and  wild  beasts  upon  the  road  fell  a 
victim  to  the  collector's  harpies  at  the  shrine,  and 
after  being  mulcted  of  the  last  farthing,  and  spend- 
ing many  nights  of  anxious  waiting  in  the  cold,  often 
failed  to  gain  the  reward  of  his  pilgrimage.  A 
single  narrow  door,  four  feet  by  five,  formed  the  sole 
entrance,  and  the  great  object  of  the  pilgrims  was  to 
catch  a  sight  of  the  god  on  the  holy  night,*^  '  which 
if  they  miss,  their  labour  is  lost.  Thousands  depart 
disappointed,'  continues  the  collector ;  but  effectual 
measures  were  taken  that  they  should  be  compelled 
to  make  their  oblation  before  they  went.  '  Two  days 
after  [the  holy  night]  not  a  pilgrim  is  to  be  seen.'^- 

"**  MS.  folio,  labelled  *  Military  Correspondence,'  p.  144.    B.  R.  R. 

^'  Shiva-ratri,  spelt  by  Mr.  Keating  Shean-raut ;  a  moveable  fes- 
tival depending  on  the  full  moon  of  Phalgun.  It  fell  on  the  22d  of 
Phalgun  in  the  year  IMr.  Keating  visited  the  shrine  (1791). 

^-  From  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  31st  July  1790. 
From  same  to  same,  dated  2Sth  March  1791,  etc.     B.  R.  R. 


THE  TEMPLE-TAX,  ITS  AMOUNT.  283 

Under  the  system  of  non-interference  pursued 
by  the  Mussulman  Rajahs  of  Beerbhoom,  from  forty 
to  one  hundred  thousand  pilgrims  visited  the  Holy 
City  each  year.  They  fixed  the  temple-tax  at  a 
moderate  sum,  and  exercised  none  of  that  indecent 
intermeddling  with  the  mysteries  of  the  shrine 
which  Mr.  Keating  introduced.  In  17S9,  his  first 
year  of  office,  fifty  thousand  pilgrims  yielded  only 
;i^430.^^  In  1790  Mr.  Keating's  improved  system 
produced  ^900,'"*^  besides  the  price  of  three  ponies 
which  he  persuaded  the  devotees  to  buy  at  fancy 
prices.  The  latter  transaction  discloses  our  early 
system  of  administration  in  an  amusing  if  not  a 
very  creditable  light.  Mr.  Keating  in  one  letter 
describes  the  ponies  as  undersized,  worn-out,  old 
animals,  not  worth  the  cost  of  marching  into  the 
district  headquarters,  and  the  best  of  which  might 
fetch  from  a  pound  to  thirty  shillings.  In  another 
he  triumphantly  relates  to  the  Government  in  Cal- 
cutta how  he  has  disposed  of  them  for  fourteen 
pounds.*^^  This  fiscal  enthusiasm  soon  disappointed 
itself,  however.  In  1791  the  collector  determined 
still  further  to  increase  the  temple-tax,  and  per- 
sonally superintended  the  oblations.  That  year 
only    fifteen    thousand    pilgrims    came.       But    Mr. 

*3  Sicca  rupees  4084  :  7  :  o. 

"  Sicca  rupees  8463  :  6  :  2.  From  Collector  to  Board  of  Re- 
venue, dated  30th  May  1790 ;  cf.  also  the  letter  of  the  31st  July  1790. 
B.  R.  R. 

^^  These  ponies  appear  in  half-a-dozcn  letters.  E.  D.  From 
Collector  to  Honourable  Charles  Stuart,  President,  and  members  of 
the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  25th  June  1790.  From  same  to  same, 
dated  i8th  July  1790,  etc.     B.  R.  R. 


284  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

Keating  was  not  the  man  to  report,  that  the  very  year 
he  had  visited  the  shrine  the  temple-tax  decreased. 
Accordingly,  ^860^^  was  extorted  in  gold  and  silver, 
besides  offerings  of  cloth,  turbans,  and  rice."  The 
whole  would  probably  amount  to  £  1 200,  and  the 
collector  stated  that  not  one  half  of  what  was  levied 
from  the  pilgrims  reached  his  hands.  Assuming 
the  total  sum  actually  paid  to  have  been  ;^i500, 
the  tax  amounted  to  a  rupee  a  head,  or  more  than 
one  man's  subsistence  for  a  month,  from  a  crowd  of 
fifteen  thousand  poverty-stricken  wretches,  of  whom 
only  a  hundred  and  five  had  a  shelter  for  their 
heads.^^ 

John  Shore,  although  his  views  as  head  of  the 
Board  of  Revenue  in  1789  were  not  precisely  those 
which  he  expressed  as  President  of  the  British  and 
Foreign  Bible  Society  in  1804,  loathed  this  con- 
stant ignoble  squabbling  between  the  collector  and 
the  priests..  He  desired  that  some  arrangement 
might  be  made  whereby  the  Government's  share  in 
the  proceedings  might  appear  as  little  as  possible 
to  sanction  the  rites.  Mr.  Keating,  finding  that  his 
zeal  in  the  matter  struck  no  responsive  chord  among 
the  higher  authorities,  but  wholly  incapable  of  com- 
prehending a  scruple  in  collecting  revenue,  from 
whatever  source  derived,  suggested  that  the  temple- 
tax  might  be  farmed  to  the  chief  priest,  naively 
adding,   *  May  not  the   number  of  pilgrims  be  en- 

*"  Sicca  rupees  8000. 

*^  From  Collector  to  Board,  dated  28th  March  1791.     B,  R.  R. 

68  Id. 


THE  TEMPLE-TAX  COMMUTED.  285 

couraged  when  there  is  no  interference  of  Govern- 
ment ?'^^  He  further  recommended  this  plan,  on 
the  ground  '  that  reHgious  artifices  will  be  practised 
and  the  reputation  of  the  temple  increased. '"^^  Lord 
Cornwallis  shared  Shore's  sentiments,  and  laboured 
the  more  strenuously  to  carry  out  his  views,  on  ac- 
count of  the  difference  of  opinion  which  had  preceded 
their  separation.  JMr.  Keating  therefore  speedily 
received  the  Governor-General's  sanction  ^'^  to  farm 
the  temple  to  the  chief  priest,  and  before  the  begin- 
ning of  1772  our  traffic  on  the  superstitions  of  the 
people  ceased  to  wear  the  form  of  a  direct  plunder 
of  their  offerings  to  their  god.  The  priests  pos- 
sessed thirty-two  rural  communes,  with  abundance 
of  pasture,  and  the  tax  was  commuted  to  a  rent 
nominally  for  the  temple  lands  attached  to  the 
shrine — in  reality,  for  the  shrine  itself.*'" 

These  worm-eaten  manuscripts  bring  back  to 
life  a  forgotten  world.  The  religious  ardour  which 
braved  the  banditti  of  the  road,  the  long  exposure 
to  the  winter  nights  of  a  mountainous  region,  the 
oppression  and  profane  interference  of  Government, 
is  unknown  to  the  Bcerbhoom  Hindus  of  the  pre- 
sent day.      Places  of  pilgrimage  still  exist,  but  the 

""  From  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  30th  May  1790,  etc. 
B.  R.  R. 

•^^  Letter  from  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  2Sth  March 
1791. 

"'  Conveyed  in  the  Board  of  Revenue's  letter  to  the  Collector, 
dated  i8th  July  1791. 

^^  From  Collector  to  William  Cowper,  Esq.,  President,  and  mem- 
bers of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  27th  October  1791.  The  second 
of  two  letters  bearing  this  date.     B.  R.  R. 


286  TUB  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

people  resort  to  them  rather  as  marts  or  fairs  than 
as  the  favoured  abodes  of  the  deity.  Education 
has  made  havoc  of  ancient  faith,  and  the  most 
orthodox  of  the  rising  generation  only  abstain  from 
open  scepticism.  It  may  be  that  the  Hindus  are 
entering  that  dark  valley  of  unbelief  which  stretches 
between  every  old  religion  of  a  noble  type  and 
Christianity.  The  lamps  by  which  their  fathers 
walked  during  so  many  ages  have  burned  out,  and 
the  more  perfect  light  of  the  coming  day  has  not 
yet  dawned. 

Besides  these  sources  of  Government  revenue, 
twenty-six  imposts,  to  which  custom  had  given  a 
sort  of  sanction,  were  levied  by  the  landholders  on 
their  own  account.'^'^  The  salt-duty  was  managed 
by  a  separate  department  in  the  seaboard  districts, 
and  levied  before  the  article  passed  into  consump- 
tion. Indeed,  the  only  mention  of  it  in  the  local 
records,  previous  to  the  permanent  settlement,  refers 
to  a  native  officer  of  the  department,  who,  while 
passing  through  the  district,  extorted  benevolences 
right  and  left  from  salt-vendors  by  the  way. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  punctual  realization 
of  the  land-tax,  were  the  collector's  duties  as  head 
of  the  Finance  Department  of  the  Company's  mer- 
cantile affairs  within  the  district.  Mr.  Keating  was 
cashier,  and  his  treasury  a  provincial  bank,  at  which 
the  commercial  resident  kept  his  Account.     The  net 

*'  A  list  of  twenty-five  is  given  in  a  Report  on  Sayer,  dated  June 
1790  ;  another  is  mentioned  in  a  letter  from  the  Collector  to  William 
Cowper,  Esq.,  President,  and  members  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated 
7th  August  1 79 1.     B.  R.  R. 


THE  DISTRICT  GOVERNMENT  BANK.        2S7 

revenue  of  the  district  exceeded  ^100,000  sterling,''* 
and  the  expenses  of  government  seldom  amounted 
to  ^5000.  Of  the  remaining  ^95,000,  part  was 
remitted  to  Calcutta  or  to  other  treasuries,  and 
part  was  retained  to  carry  on  the  Company's  manu- 
factures in  the  district.  The  object  of  Government 
then,  as  now,  was  to  have  as  little  money  as  possible 
lying  unused  in  the  provincial  treasuries, — an  object 
which  the  more  perfect  machinery  of  the  present  day 
accomplishes  by  a  mere  process  of  routine,  but  which 
at  the  period  under  review  was  complicated  by  the 
collector's  liability  to  be  drawn  on  at  any  time  by 
the  commercial  a^rents.  The  Calcutta  authorities 
gave  timely  notice  of  drafts  when  practicable ;  still 
the  collector  required  considerable  experience  and 
foresight,  in  order  to  send  the  largest  possible  remit- 
tances out  of  the  district,  and  yet  to  keep  enough 
to  avoid  all  risk  of  having  to  dishonour  the  Com- 
pany's cheques  within  it.  The  specie  retained  in 
the  treasury  averaged  £'-jOOO  sterling  ;  as  soon  as 
it  amounted  to  ^10,000,  a  remittance  to  Calcutta 
was  effected.  Mr.  Keating  seems  to  have  been 
less  successful  as  mercantile  cashier  than  as  a 
revenue  administrator.  Reprimands  from  the 
Accountant-General  came  as  regularly  as  the  end 


"*  Land-tnx  of  Bcerbhoom,     .        .         S.  R.  611,321  :    7  :  16 
Land-tax  of  Bishcnporc,     .         .         S.  R.  386,707  :  1 1  :    7 


Total,       .        .         .         S.  R.  998,029  :    3  :    3 
Of  this  about  S.  R.  950,000,  or,  in  round  numbers,  ^100,000,  were 
usually  realized.     Jamah-wasil-baki  for  1788-S9,  etc.     B.  R.  R.  and 
C  O.  R. 


288  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

of  the  month  ;  and  not  without  reason,  for  while 
the  Calcutta  exchequer  had  been  emptied  to  carry 
on  the  Mahratta  war,  and  the  Company  was  bor- 
rowing thankfully  at  exorbitant  rates,  Mr.  Keating' 
calmly  retained  a  cash  balance  of  ^19,000  lying 
unused  in  his  treasury."^  The  district  Government 
bank  was  manaofed  thus  :  The  Board  of  Trade 
forwarded  an  estimate  of  the  drafts  to  be  drawn 
upon  the  district  bank  during  the  ensuing  six 
months,  and  the  Board  of  Revenue  named  the 
treasury  to  which  the  surplus  should  be  remitted. 
The  collector  sent  a  statement  on  the  last  day  of 
each  month,  exhibiting  the  cash  balances,  and  men- 
tioning by  what  remittances  he  purposed  to  dispose 
of  them.  The  amount  and  date  of  the  remittances 
were  therefore  left  to  the  collector's  discretion,  in- 
stead of  being  fixed,  as  at  present,  by  the  central 
Government. 

Of  this  discretion  Mr.  Keating  did  not  always 
make  a  sound  use.  On  one  occasion  he  found 
himself  unable  to  meet  a  commercial  draft  for  ^8000, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  he  had  not  kept  enough 
money  in  his  treasury.^^  On  another,  the  district 
was  thrown  into  consternation  by  the  treasury 
stopping  payment  altogether.  In  the  end  of  1790, 
the  war  with  Tippoo  had  drained  the  Company's 
treasure-chests,    and    the   failure   of    the    crops    in 

^^  Mr.  Caldecott,  Accountant  to  the  Board  of  Revenue,  called  for 
an  explanation  on  September  15,  1790. 

^^  From  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  19th  April  1789; 
also,  correspondence  with  Mr.  John  Cheap,  Commercial  Resident  at 
Soorool.     B.  R.  R. 


THE  GOVERNMENT  BANK  STOPS.  289 

Southern  India  left  the  whole  deficit  to  be  borne 
by  the  Bengal  districts."  The  collectors  were  or- 
dered to  send  down  every  available  rupee  to  Cal- 
cutta ;  a  loan,  somewhat  on  the  principle  of  a  Tudor 
benevolence,  was  obtained  from  the  Nawab  \^^  and 
on  the  15th  of  November  the  Accountant-General 
directed  all  disbursements  to  be  suspended.  Ten 
days  later  came  another  letter  still  more  urgent  for 
remittances ;  during  the  winter  the  demand  was 
frequently  repeated,  and  the  provincial  Government 
banks  throuohout  Ben^jal  remained  closed. '^■*  It 
requires  a  minute  acquaintance  with  the  economy 
of  rural  Bengal  to  understand  the  distress  which 
followed.  The  Company  was  a  great  manufacturer, 
and  the  immediate  result  of  these  measures  was  to 
throw  many  thousands  of  families  out  of  work  in 
mid-winter.  The  sudden  drain  upon  the  specie  of 
the  province,  moreover,  carried  off  the  only  cur- 
rency in  which  the  cultivators  could  pay  their  rent 
or  the  artisans  receive  payment  for  the  goods  they 
had  delivered  to  the  commercial  resident.  Starv- 
ing crowds  besieged  the  Treasury,  and  this  single 
order  of  Government  inflicted  more  suffering  than 
a  succession  of  bad  crops,  and  contributed  no  trifling 
quota    to    that    vast    total    of    unrecorded    misery 

^^  Calcutta  Gazette  oi  i8th  November  1790.  Selections,  vol.  ii.  p. 
280.  The  famine  is  referred  to  in  many  other  places.  A  few  months 
previously  Madras  had  been  forced  to  draw  on  the  central  treasury  in 
Calcutta  for  ;^2 1,000.     C.  O.  R.  and  I.  O.  L. 

'■'**  Calcutta  Gazette,  18th  November  1790.     Sel.  ii.  p.  278. 

•■'^  From  A.  Caldecott,  Esq.,  officiating  Accountant-General,  to 
Collector,  dated  15th  November  1790.  From  same  to  same,  dated 
25th  Novcmljcr  1790,  7th  January  1791,  etc.     B.  R.  R. 

VOL.   I.  T 


290  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

on  which  our  Indian  trophies  are  erected.  The 
starvation  of  the  weavers  during  those  winter 
months,  and  the  general  beHef  that  the  Company's 
sway  had  come  to  an  end,  were  long  remembered 
in  Beerbhoom/" 

The  guarding  of  treasure  parties  demanded  close 
attention.  So  unsafe  was  the  country,  that  people 
never  travelled  except  in  large  parties,  or  under  the 
protection  of  armed  men.  Persons  of  rank  were 
accompanied  by  their  own  retainers,  and  more  than 
once  the  collector  called  on  the  commandinof  officer 
for  a  detachment  of  infantry,  to  escort  wealthy 
natives,  who  were  attempting  to  pass  through  the 
district  with  an  insufficient  force. ^^  Indeed,  an 
armed  retinue  had  become  a  necessity  for  every 
one  who  wished  to  make  a  figure  on  his  travels. 
The  life  of  a  civilian  was  as  sacred  in  those  wild 
times  as  it  is  now.  The  assistant  magistrates  and 
commercial  agents  camped  in  the  haunts  of  the  ban- 
ditti without  any  personal  risk ;  but  the  collector, 
deeming  his  position  as  head  of  the  district  demanded 
some  little  pomp,  never  stirred  out  of  Soorie  without 
a  detachment  of  Sepoys.  A  few  weeks  before  Mr. 
Keating's  arrival  at  Beerbhoom,  a  treasure  party 
had  been  overpowered  and  ;^30oo  plundered  ;  and 
the  new  collector  determined  that  under   his   rule 

'^^  The  only  disbursement  excepted  from  the  general  interdict  in 
Beerbhoom  was  the  reward  for  killing  tigers,  to  which  was  subse- 
quently added  the  diet  of  prisoners.  In  salt  and  opium  districts  the 
advances  for  these  articles  of  revenue  w-ere  also  excepted.     B.  R.  R. 

'''^  MS.  '  Military  Correspondence,'  folio.  On  one  occasion  the 
Rajah  of  Chittra's  agent  required  a  guard  ;  on  another,  a  rich  native 
gentleman  belonging  to  Burdwan,  etc. 


THE  GUARDING  OF  TREASURE.  291 

no  consideration  for  the  military  should  lead  to  a 
similar  misfortune.  Some  of  his  demands  sound 
unreasonable  enough  to  officers  of  our  days.  On 
one  occasion,  in  the  middle  of  the  rains,  he  called 
for  an  escort  to  convey  the  paltry  sum  of  ^200  to 
Moorshedabad.'^  The  guard  consisted  of  at  least 
one  officer  and  five  men,  for  a  smaller  number  never 
ventured  into  the  jungle  ;  and  the  journey,  including 
the  return,  at  that  season  of  the  year  occupied 
fifteen  days.  The  pay  of  a  Sepoy  was  ten  shillings 
a  month,  that  of  the  officer  may  be  set  down  at  a 
pound  ;  so  that  the  cost  of  escort  upon  a  journey 
that  now  occupies  a  few  hours,  amounted  to  nearly 
5  per  cent,  of  the  whole  remittance.  On  another 
occasion,  when  the  commanding  officer  could  ill 
spare  his  men,  the  collector  called  for  two  heavy 
detachments  to  guard  remittances  to  the  same 
destination  within  a  few  days  of  each  other,  and 
the  treasury  guards  had  often  to  be  reduced  in 
order  to  meet  these  vexatious  demands.  The 
average  number  of  military  employed  on  escort 
duty  amounted  to  sixty  soldiers  and  nine  officers  at 
a  cost  of  £^2  per  mensem,"  or  ;^624  per  annum, 

"-  MS.  'Military  Correspondence,'  p.  128. 

"  The  charge  per  mensem  for  a  detachment  of  twenty  Sepoys, 
with  its  complement  of  officers,  was  as  follows  : 

I  Jemadar,  at  S.  R.  13,         .         .         .         S.  R.  13 


I  Havildar,  at      „       9, 
I  Naik,        at      ,.       7, 
20  Sepoys,     at      „        5, 
Good  service  allowances, 


9 

7 

100 

6 


S.  R.  135  per  mensem, 
equal  to  £\\  sterling.     Letter  to  the  Collector  from  George  Cheap, 


292  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

for  remittances  rarely  exceeding  ;^40,ooo  a  year. 
The  remittances  in  1864  amounted  to  ^'59,600,  at 
a  cost  of  only  £20  for  guards/*  Indeed,  the  whole 
charge  for  transmitting  ;^59,ooo  in  1864  hardly 
exceeds  one-tenth  of  what  was  paid  for  the  mere 
escort  of  ^40,000  in  1789/^ 

As  head  of  the  provincial  Government  bank, 
the  collector  had  to  give  some  attention  to  the 
currency  of  the  district.  The  Company  paid  a  high 
premium  on  its  loans,  and  therefore  deemed  it 
important  to  have  as  many  as  possible  of  its  notes 
in  circulation.  Complicated  and  vexatious  rules 
were  enacted  to  attain  this  object.  It  paid  all 
salaries  or  fixed  disbursements  over  £  1 200  a  year, 
half  in  notes,  half  in  cash,^*^  thus  saddling  indi- 
viduals in  remote  places  with  Company's  paper, 
which  they  had   to   get   rid  of  at  a  loss."      Fre- 

Esq.,  paymaster  to  the  up-country  garrisons,  dated  Calcutta,  nth 
April  1789. 

'^^  This  return  has  been  furnished  from  the  office  of  the  District 
Superintendent  of  Police.  The  average  of  two  half-years,  viz.  that 
ending  31st  December  1864  and  30th  June  1865,  was  Rs.  100  per 
six  months,  or  £10  per  annum. 

^^  The  remittances  during  the  financial  year  1864-65  were 
^50,000  in  specie  and  ;i^96oo  in  notes.  The  entire  charge  of 
transit  and  escort  was  Rs.  760  :  13  :  i,  or  ;^76,  is.  8d.  sterling,  or  a 
fraction  over  one-tenth  per  cent,  on  the  sum  remitted.  The  distance 
of  the  treasuries  to  which  remittances  were  sent  averaged  150  miles, 
or  three  times  farther  than  the  average  distance  in  1789. 

^•^  Resolution  of  the  Governor-General  in  Council,  dated  27th  May 
1789,  etc.  It  is  not  clear  whether  the  notes  referred  to  in  this  resolu- 
tion bore  interest ;  but  it  is  evident  from  the  treasury  records  that 
there  were  a  certain  class  of  unpopular  notes  forced  into  circulation. 
C.  O.  R.  Cf  Sir  James  Steuart's  Proposals  for  the  Extension  of 
Paper  Credit  in  Bengal,  1772.     I.  O.  L. 

'''  The  discount  in  September  1787  was  7  per  cent,  on  Govern- 


STATE  OF  THE  CURRENCY.  293 

quently,  indeed,  there  was  nothing  in  tlie  treasury 
except  paper,  with  which  to  pay  the  officials  ;  and 
an  old  newspaper  announces  as  a  great  matter  that 
the  Calcutta  employes  would  receive  a  month's  pay 
in  silver.  Although  paper  was  made  a  legal  tender 
from  the  Government  to  the  public,  it  seems  that 
the  public  could  not  as  a  matter  of  right  offer  it  in 
discharge  of  the  Government  demands.  There  is 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Keating  to  the  Board  of  Revenue, 
saying  that  a  payment  of  the  revenue  had  been 
tendered  in  notes,  and  asking  whether  he  should 
receive  them.'^ 

Every  page  of  the  records  bears  witness  to  the 
miseries  incident  to  a  vitiated  currency.  The 
coinage,  the  refuse  of  twenty  different  dynasties 
and  petty  potentates,  had  been  clipped,  drilled, 
filed,  scooped  out,  sweated,  counterfeited,  and 
changed  from  its  original  value  by  every  process  of 
debasement  devised  by  Hindu  ingenuity  during  a 
space  of  four  hundred  years.  The  smallest  coin 
could  not  change  hands,  without  an  elaborate  cal- 
culation as  to  the  amount  to  be  deducted  from  its 
nominal  value.  This  calculation,  it  need  hardly 
be  said,  was  always  in  favour  of  the  stronger  party. 
The  treasury  officers  exacted  an  ample  discount 
from  the  landholders,— a  discount  which,  when 
Bengal   passed  under   British   rule,  amounted   to  3 

mcnt  certificates.  In  1785  it  was  double  these  amounts. — Calcutta 
Gazette^  6th  September  1787.     I.  O.  L. 

"*•  To  John  Shore,  Esq.,  President,  and  members  of  the  Board  of 
Revenue,  from  Collector,  dated  nth  April  1789,  etc.     B.  R.  R. 


2  94  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

per  cent,  after  a  coin  had  been  in  circulation  a  single 
year,  and  to  5  per  cent,  after  the  second  year, 
although  no  actual  depreciation  had  taken  place." 
The  landholder  demanded  a  double  allowance 
from  the  middleman,  and  the  middleman  extorted 
a  quadruple  allowance  from  the  unhappy  tiller  of 
the  soil.  In  a  long  indignant  letter  on  the  illegal 
cesses  under  which  the  cultivator  groaned,  Mr. 
Keating  singles  out  the  '  batta '  or  exchange  on  old 
rupees  as  the  most  cruel,  because  the  least  defined.^*' 
No  recognised  standard  existed  by  which  to  limit 
the  rapacity  of  the  treasury  officers.  The  Govern- 
ment held  them  responsible  for  remitting  the  net 
revenue  in  full,  and  left  them  to  deduct  such  a  pro- 
portion from  each  coin,  as  they  deemed  sufficient  to 
cover  all  risk  of  short  weight.  Moreover,  so  great 
was  the  variety  of  coin  in  use,  that  they  claimed  a 
further  discretion  as  to  what  they  would  receive  at 
all.  Cowries  (shells),  copper  coins  of  every  denomi- 
nation, lumps  of  copper  without  any  denomination 
whatever,  pieces  of  iron  beaten  up  with  brass, 
thirty-two  different  kinds  of  rupees,  from  the  full 
sicca   to    the    Viziery,    hardly    more    than    half   its 


''"^  The  Principles  of  Money  applied  to  the  Present  State  of  Coin 
in  Bengal,  composed  for  the  use  of  the  Honourable  the  East  India 
Company,  by  Sir  James  Stcuart,  Baronet,  p.  16,  small  \\.o.  Privately 
printed  for  the  Company  in  1772.  Grant's  Expediency  Maintained, 
p.  23,  8vo,  1813.  Cf.  Essais  sur  I'Histoire  Economique  de  la 
Turquie,  p.  109,  Paris  1865. 

^^  From  Collector  to  the  Honourable  Charles  Stuart,  President, 
and  members  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  in  reply  to  the  Board's 
order  to  introduce  the  decennial  settlement,  dated  April  1790. 
B.  R.  K 


VARIETY  OF  COINS.  295 

value,**^  pagodas  of  various  weights,*^  dollars*^  of 
different  standards  of  purity,  gold  mohurs  worth 
from  twenty-five  to  thirty-two  shiUings  each,^^  and 
a  diversity  of  Asiatic  and  European  coins  whose 
very  names  are  now  forgotten. ^^  At  some  treasuries 
cowries  were  taken,  at  others  they  were  not."*^  Some 
collectors  accepted  payment  in  gold ;  others  refused 
it ;  others,  again,  could  not  make  up  their  minds 
either  way;^^  and  the  miserable  peasant  never  knew 
whether  the  coin  for  which  he  sold  his  crop  would 
be  of  any  use  to  him  when  he  came  to  pay  his 
rent. 

Notwithstanding  the  oppressive  precautions  ob- 
served in  receiving  coins  at  the  treasury,  the  number 

^^  Calcutta  Gazette  of  ist  November  1792.  The  value  of  the 
viziery  rupee  was  37  per  cent,  less  than  the  siccas  of  Moorshcdabad, 
Patna,  and  Dacca.  For  list  of  rupees  in  use,  and  their  value,  sec 
Appendix  N. 

^"^  Worth  from  six  shillings  and  eightpence  to  eight  shillings  and 
sixpence,  according  to  the  weight  and  the  current  rates  of  exchange. 

'*•''  Calcutta  Gazette  of  14th  January  1790. 

^■*  Sir  James  Steuart's  Principles  of  Money  applied  to  Bengal,  p. 
26,  4to,  1772. 

8*  For  a  list  of  coins  current  in  six  Indian  ports  in  1763,  sec 
Appendix  O. 

**"  In  Sylhet  they  were  taken,  and  proved  very  difficult  to  be  got 
rid  of.  Calcutta  Gacette  of  6th  October  1791.  Lives  of  the  Lindsays, 
by  Lord  Lindsay,  iii.  170.  In  Beerbhoom  they  were  not  received. 
B.  R.  R. 

•^^  Mr.  Keating,  shortly  after  his  arrival,  was  offered  gold  in 
payment  of  the  land-tax,  and  on  referring  the  matter  to  the  Board, 
obtained  its  sanction  to  receive  gold  coins.  Letter  from  Collector  to 
John  Shore,  President,  and  members  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated 
nth  April  1789,  with  reply  thereto.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a 
petition  '  by  several  respectable  mercantile  gentlemen  requesting 
orders  for  the  free  currency  of  gold  in  payment  of  the  revenues,' 
referred  to  in  the  Calcutta  Gazette  of  Thursday,  17th  April  1788. 
B.  R.  R.  and  I.  O.  L. 


2(;6  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

of  bad  rupees  which  found  their  way  into  the  remit- 
tances sounds  incredible  at  the  present  day.  In 
one  small  remittance  of  40,738  rupees  (^41,000),  no 
fewer  than  738  were  reported  to  have  '  turned  out 
bad.'^®  At  present  the  bad  rupees  do  not  average 
five  in  a  remittance  of  one  hundred  thousand.  The 
coin  in  circulation,  moreover,  was  insufficient  for  the 
commerce  of  the  country,  and  Government  compli- 
cated the  evil  by  injudicious  interference.  It  attri- 
buted the  scarcity  of  coin,  according  to  the  fashion 
of  the  day,  to  *  tricks  in  raising  the  batta  {i.  e.  ex- 
change),' '  to  the  extortion  of  usurers,'  *  to  a  combina- 
tion of  moneyed  harpies  ;'®^  in  short,  to  every  reason 
but  the  true  one — namely,  the  inadequacy  of  the 
coinage  to  carry  on  the  trade  of  the  province.  A 
fourfold  currency — gold,  silver,  copper,  and  notes — 
had  gradually  been  introduced,  without  a  single  pro- 
vision to  guard  against  the  difficulties  to  which  such 
a  state  of  things  gives  rise.  Of  arbitrary  regulation, 
however,  there  was  no  lack.  The  Government  from 
time  to  time  blindly  fixed  the  price  of  bullion,  and 
the  incipient  Anglo-Indian  press  not  less  blindly 
supported  the  measure.  A  committee  of  inquiry 
sat ;  it  need  scarcly  be  added,  without  in  any  way 
mending  matters.  '  The  discount  on  gold  mohurs,' 
wrote  the  editor  of  the  Calcutta  Gazette  in  1788, 
'  still  continues  enormously  high,  to  the  ruinous  dis- 
tress of  the  poor,  and  to  the  great  inconvenience  of 

""  Letter  from  J.  E.  Harrington,  Esq.,  Collector  of  Moorshedabad, 
to  C.  Keating,  Esq.,  Collector  of  Beerbhoom,  dated  27th  September 
1790.     B.  R.  R. 

**^  Calcutta  Gazettes  of  28th  February,  loth  April  1788.  etc.    J.  O.  L. 


INADEQUACY  OF  THE  CURRENCY.  297 

the  economical  householder.  The  continuance  of 
this  evil,  much  more  the  increase  of  it,  after  the 
larore  imports  of  silver  into  Calcutta  from  Burdwan 
and  other  districts,  evidently  proves  it  is  owing  to  a 
combination  of  moneyed  harpies.  Should  they  per- 
severe till  the  commencement  of  the  next  sessions, 
it  is  anxiously  to  be  hoped  they  will  be  called  to 
account  for  their  illegal  practices  before  a  jury  of 
their  fellow-citizens,  and  will  experience  the  utmost 
severity  of  the  law,  which  prohibits  and  punishes 
the  engrossment  of  any  article  for  the  advance- 
ment of  its  price.  Coined  silver  is  an  article  that 
admits  of  precise  determination  of  its  proper  value, 
and  the  engrossment  and  enhancement  of  it  may 
easily  be  brought  to  specific  proof.'  '  It  is  seriously 
to  be  hoped,'  he  continued,  a  fortnight  later,  '  that 
some  effectual  measures  will  be  taken  to  put  a  stop 
to  the  progress  of  this  evil,  so  severely  felt  by  the 
community  at  large ;  otherwise  trade  must  sink 
under  usury.'  But  at  the  very  time  at  which  the 
aid  of  the  courts  was  most  loudly  invoked,  the 
Legislature  had  omitted  to  make  any  provision  for 
preserving  the  purity  of  the  coin.  The  Anglo- 
Indian  community  clamoured  for  penal  restrictions 
and  interference  to  a  degree  far  beyond  that  which 
the  law  can  successfully  exercise,  while  the  Anglo- 
Indian  Government  had  not  enabled  the  courts  to 
perform  a  duty  which  they  could  easily  have 
accomplished.  Sir  William  Dunkins,  in  charging 
the  grand  jury  of  Calcutta,^"  regrets  that  clipping, 

^^  Calcutta  Gazette  of  i8th  June  I795-      '•  O.  L. 


298  rilE  ANNALS  01'  RURAL  BENGAL. 

counterfeiting,  and  similar  offences  against  the  coin 
could  not  be  dealt  with  more  seriously  than  as  cases 
of  simple  cheating. 

The  debasement  and  inadequacy  of  the  rural 
coinage  proceeded  from  two  sets  of  causes  ;  one  of 
which  had  been  at  work  before  the  English  had 
anything  to  do  with  Bengal,  the  other  resulting 
from  their  injudicious  but  well-meant  efforts  at  cur- 
rency reform.  The  Mussulmans  recognised  only 
one  circulating  medium — to  wit,  silver.  Gold  coins 
were  struck,  but  they  '  were  left  to  seek  their  own 
value. '^^  In  short,  gold  was  treated  as  bullion, 
and  the  stamped  pieces  called  mohurs  circulated 
at  various  prices,  according  to  the  current  price  of 
the  metal.  The  weight  and  fineness  of  the  Delhi 
mohurs  was  uniform,  being  of  the  same  weight  and 
fineness  as  the  silver  rupee ;  but  a  Delhi  mohur 
sometimes  sold  for  twelve,  sometimes  for  thirteen, 
fourteen,  or  fifteen  sicca  rupees.^^  In  the  same  way, 
copper  coins,  when  transferred  in  large  quantities, 
were  and  are  to  the  present  day  sold ;  that  is  to 
say,  they  do  not  pass  at  their  full  denominational 
value,  but  at  a  lower  rate,  the  proportion  deducted 
depending  on  the  locality,  and  the  comparative 
demand  for  silver  or  copper  coins.  Indeed,  the 
tendency  of  copper  coins  to  accumulate  in  the  dis- 
trict treasuries  still  forms  a  subject  of  frequent 
official  correspondence,  and  a  percentage  is  in  some 


"'  Sir  James   Steuart's  Principles  of  Money  applied   to  Bengal, 
p.  25,  4to,  1772. 
92  Id.  p.  26. 


IHE  SILVER  CURRENCY.  299 

places  allowed  to  the  collectors  of  the  assessed 
taxes — such  as  the  municipal  police — for  convert- 
ing the  petty  copper  payments  into  rupees. 

The  silver  currency,  therefore,  was  the  only  cir- 
culating medium  which  native  governments  steadily 
endeavoured  to  regulate,  and  even  in  these  efforts 
they  did  not  succeed. ''^  In  the  first  place,  there  was 
a  number  of  mints,  none  of  which  honestly  adhered 
to  the  same  standard,  and  many  of  which  did  not 
even  pretend  to  do  so.  One  of  the  most  cherished 
insignia  of  sovereignty  was  the  striking  of  coin  ; 
and  little  potentates  who  in  every  other  respect 
acknowledored  allemance  to  Delhi,  maintained  their 
independent  right  of  coining.  As  it  was  the  last 
privilege  to  which  fallen  dynasties  clung,  so  it  was 
the  first  to  which  adventurers  rising  into  power 
aspired.  While  the  Mahrattas  were  still  mountain 
robbers  they  set  up  a  mint;  and  in  1685  the  East 
India  Company,  at  a  period  when  it  had  only  a 
few  houses  and  gardens  in  Bengal,  intrigued  for 
the  dignity  of  striking  its  own  coin.  The  silver 
pieces  thus  produced  passed  from  province  to  pro- 
vince in  the  hands  of  wandering  merchants,  or  in 
payment  of  tribute,  and  it  became  necessary  to  fix 
some  ideal  standard  by  which  to  calculate  their 
value.^^     No  two  mints  uniformly  struck  rupees  of 

"^  The  standard  weight  of  a  rupee  was  theoretically  one  sicca, 
equal  to  I79'55ii  grains  troy;  the  standard  fineness  was  -^^^  pure 
silver. 

^^  The  Mussulmans  in  Turkey  resorted  to  practically  the  same 
expedient,  and  for  the  same  reasons.  See  an  excellent  scries  of  Essais 
sur  I'Histoirc  Economique  dc  la  Turquic,  par  M.  Belin,  Sccretairc- 
Interpr^te  de  I'Empereur  k  Constantinople.     Imperial  Press,  1865. 


300  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  same  weight  and  fineness  ;  indeed,  very  few 
mints  invariably  adhered  even  to  their  own  nomi- 
nal standard,  and  after  the  coin  reached  the  public 
it  was  subjected  to  every  species  of  debasement. 
The  actual  coin  at  any  single  mint,  therefore,  could 
not  be  selected  as  the  standard,  for  no  mint  could 
be  trusted,  and  whatever  could  be  handled  was  sure 
to  be  falsified.  An  ideal  coin  was  accordingly  in- 
vented, by  which  all  rupees  might  be  valued,  and 
one  of  the  Company's  earliest  and  soundest  financial 
advisers  has  left  on  record  the  process.  *  When  a 
sum  of  rupees  is  brought  to  a  shroff  (banker  or 
money-changer),  he  examines  them  piece  by  piece, 
ranges  them  according  to  their  fineness,  then  by 
their  weight.  Then  he  allows  for  the  different 
legal  battas  (deductions)  upon  siccas  and  sunats  ; 
and  this  done,  he  values  in  gross  by  the  cur7'e7it 
rupee  what  the  whole  quantity  is  worth.  The 
rupee  current ,  therefore,  Is  the  only  coin  fixed  by 
which  coin  is  at  present  valued ;  and  the  reason  is, 
because  it  is  not  a  coin  itself,  and  therefore  can 
never  be  falsified  or  worn.'^* 

This  process,  though  simple  and  no  doubt  pro- 
fitable to  a  banker  or  treasury  officer,  was  impossible 
to  the  poor  peasant.  The  whole  rural  population 
had  to  receive  payment  for  their  crops  In  coins 
whose  value  they  did  not  understand,  and  then  to 
pay  away  these  coins  for  rent  and  taxes  according 
to  a  calculation  which  they  could  not  comprehend. 

^'  Sir   James  Steuart's  Principles  of  Money  applied    to  Bengal, 
p.  17,  4to,  1772. 


FIRST  C URRENC  Y  REFORM,  1766.  301 

We  can  now  appreciate  the  feelings  of  almost  per- 
sonal gratitude  with  which  the  husbandmen  of  India 
long  remembered  Todar  Mai,  a  financier  who,  while 
he  raised  the  revenues,  authoritatively  re-enacted 
the  option  of  paying  them  in  kind. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  the  East 
India  Company  received  charge  of  Lower  Bengal. 
The  number  of  coins  in  its  treasure-chests  afforded 
no  index  of  its  financial  position  ;  and  although  it 
got  over  this  difficulty  to  a  certain  extent  by  keeping 
its  accounts  in  current  rupees,  the  work  of  convert- 
ing the  actual  coinage  into  the  ideal  standard,  proved 
too  laborious  to  be  very  accurately  performed.  Set- 
ting aside  the  multitudinous  differences  of  weight, 
hardly  two  remittances  a  year  were  made  in  coin  of 
the  same  fineness.  Of  twenty-eight  large  payments, 
of  which  we  have  an  accurate  record,^"  between  1764 
and  1769  inclusive,  only  three  were  in  rupees  of 
standard  purity  ;  and  before  the  value  of  the  other 
twenty-five  could  be  ascertained,  it  was  necessary  to 
melt  them  down,  weigh,  and  assay  them.  The 
obvious  remedy  was  to  call  in  the  old  currency, 
issuing  in  place  of  it  a  new  coinage  of  fixed  weight 
and  purity ;  and  on  this  important  duty  the  first 
English  governors  of  Bengal  went  heartily  to  work. 

But  presently  they  discovered  that  the  remedy 
was  by  no  means  so  obvious  or  easy  as  they  had 
supposed.  Recoinage  cost  a  heavy  percentage  ;  and 
people  would   not  bring  their  debased   coin   to   the 

""  Sir  James  Steuart's  Principles  of  Money  applied  to  Bengal,  pp. 
18-21. 


302  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

mint  when  they  found  that  they  got  back  barely 
three-fifths  of  what  they  gave  in.  Partly  from  this 
reason,  and  partly  from  delay  in  re-issuing  the 
rupees,  the  province  found  itself  drained  of  its  cur- 
rency. Business  came  to  a  stand  :  the  richest  mer- 
chants could  obtain  no  circulatinof  medium  with  which 
to  purchase  goods  for  their  traffic,  and  no  one  would 
sell  on  credit,  well  knowing  that,  when  the  time  of 
payment  came,  no  coin  would  be  forthcoming.  To 
meet  this  emergency,  the  Council  in  Calcutta  deter- 
mined to  issue  a  gold  currency,  which  should  pass 
not  merely  for  its  equivalent  in  silver  at  the  market 
rates,  but  as  a  distinct  medium  of  circulation,  each 
piece  having  a  fixed  denomination  of  value.  The 
Council,  however,  not  having  the  requisite  bullion 
to  start  with,  tried  to  induce  the  people  to  bring 
their  gold  for  coinage,  by  attaching  an  arbitrary 
value  to  the  new  gold  mohurs.  According  to  law, 
each  piece  was  to  pass  at  a  rate  which  exceeded  by 
172  per  cent,  its  market  value  in  silver.  Crowds 
besieged  the  mint  with  ingots  to  be  manufactured 
into  these  profitable  coins ;  but  the  more  gold 
mohurs  the  Council  issued,  the  greater  the  scarcity 
in  the  currency,  for  some  unaccountable  reason,  be- 
came. Not  till  six  years  afterwards  was  the  mys- 
tery explained.  The  '  encouragement '  given  to 
gold  simply  meant  discouragement  to  silver.  The 
Council,  by  fixing  the  value  of  the  new  coins  at 
arbitrary  rates,  had  rendered  it  17^  per  cent,  more 
profitable  to  make  payments  in  gold  ;  but  it  had 
only  done  so  by  rendering  it  i  ']\  per  cent,  less  pro- 


THE  GOLD  COINAGE  OE  1766.  303 

fitable  to  pay  in  silver.  The  gains  of  the  fortunate 
few  who  held  gold  had  to  be  paid  a  thousand-fold 
by  the  unfortunate  many  who  held  silver.  The 
latter  refused  to  make  payments  in  a  currency  that 
had  thus  been  depreciated  \']\  per  cent.,  and  sent 
it  abroad  either  in  exchange  for  gold,  or  for  pur- 
poses of  trade.  The  East  India  Company  itself,  in 
its  mercantile  capacity,  carried  a  quarter  of  a  milhon 
sterling  per  annum  out  of  Bengal  to  China  ;"^ 
Madras  constantly  required  specie  from  Bengal  to 
purchase  its  investment ;  and  Bombay,  which  did 
not  pay  the  expense  of  government,  had  to  be  sup- 
plied from  the  same  source.®^  In  the  years  followincr 
this  memorable  experiment,  the  Council  constantly 
complain  that  while  no  currency  existed  with  which 
to  carry  on  internal  commerce,  the  exportation  of 
silver  went  on  upon  an  unprecedented  scale. 

Another  influence  presently  began  to  intensify 
the  evil.  India  had  always  depended  on  its  foreign 
trade  for  a  supply  of  the  precious  metals.  It  ab- 
sorbed vast  quantities  of  silver  for  jewellery  and 
domestic  ornaments  ;  and   Romans,  Venetians,  Por- 

'•"'  Sir  James  Stcuart,  pp.  26,  32,  57,  etc.     I.  O.  L. 

'"*  Bengal  from  the  very  first  seems  to  have  been  the  milch  cow 
from  which  the  other  Presidencies  drew  their  support.  A  hundred 
references  to  the  Indian  records  and  papers  of  the  last  century  might 
be  given.  For  example,  letters  from  the  President  and  Council  of 
Bengal  to  the  Court  of  Directors,  dated  the  25th  August  1770,  paras. 
26  and  30  ;  the  9th  March  1772,  para.  22,  in  which  the  Council  com- 
plain that  the  Bengal  treasuries  are  completely  emptied  by  sending 
coin  to  the  other  Presidencies  ;  Hicky's  Boii^al  Gazette,  29t1i  April 
1780,  with  innumerable  notices  in  the  Caleutta  Gazette,  1784-1804. 
I.  O.  R.,  C.  O.  R.,  and  I.  O.  L.  Cf.  also  Mr.  Marshman's  History  of 
India,  i,  p.  283  (in  1758),  and  p.  328  (in  1767).     Longmans,  1S67. 


304  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

tuguese,  Dutch,  and  English,  had  each  in  turn 
lamented  the  exportation  of  their  national  currency 
in  exchange  for  oriental  luxuries.  During  the 
seventeenth  century  a  single  harbour  of  Western 
India — Surat — received,  by  the  way  of  the  Persian 
Gulf  alone,  half  a  million  sterling  per  annum  in 
specie.  The  quantity  of  bullion  which  the  trade 
carried  out  of  England  long  formed  a  most  tren- 
chant weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  opponents  of  the 
East  India  Company.  Its  amount  was  regulated  by 
Parliament,  and  loudly  deplored  by  patriotic  pam- 
phleteers. Until  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  the 
Company's  business  consisted  in  sending  silver  from 
England,  and  bringing  back  Indian  produce  in  ex- 
change ;  but  in  1765,  when  the  revenues  of  Lower 
Bengal  passed  into  its  hands,  it  found  itself  pos- 
sessed of  an  annual  surplus  large  enough  to  do 
away  with  the  necessity  of  importing  specie  for  the 
purchase  of  its  investment.^*  If  a  district  yielded, 
as  in  the  case  of  Beerbhoom,  ;^90,ooo  of  revenue, 
the  Council  took  care  that  not  more  than  ^^5000  or 
;^6ooo  were  spent  in  governing  it.  From  the  re- 
mainder, ten  thousand  pounds  or  so  were  deducted 
for  general  civil  expenses,  ten  thousand  more  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  army,  and  the  surplus  of  say 
£6o,oC)0  was  invested  in  silks,  muslins,  cotton  cloths, 
and  other  articles,  to  be  sold  by  the  authorities  in 
Leadenhall  Street.  In  short,  the  revenues  of 
Bengal  supplied  the  means  of  providing  the  invest 
ment  in  Bengal,  and  so  the  annual  influx  of  specie 

^*  Sir  James  Steuart,  p.  56. 


DRAIN  UPON  THE  CURRENCY.  305 

ceased,  while  the  consumption  of  the  precious  metals 
went  on  as  before.  It  was  this  annual  influx  alone 
that  had  enabled  the  province  to  bear  up  against 
the  heavy  annual  drain  on  its  currency ;  and  we  are 
assured  that  without  it  even  the  tribute  to  Delhi, 
not  to  speak  of  the  yearly  supply  of  bullion  to  the 
Company's  factors  in  China,  Madras,  and  Bombay, 
could  not  have  been  sustained.  Mandeville,  writing- 
in  1750,  states  that  the  payment  of  the  Emperor's 
revenue  '  sweeps  away  almost  all  the  silver,  coined 
or  uncoined,  which  comes  into  Bengal.  It  goes  to 
Delhi,  from  whence  it  never  returns  to  (Lower) 
Bengal  ;  so  that  after  such  treasure  is  gone  from 
Muxadavad  (Moorshedabad),  there  is  hardly  cur- 
rency enough  left  in  Bengal  to  carry  on  any  trade, 
or  even  to  go  to  market  for  provisions  and  neces- 
saries of  life,  till  the  next  shipping  arrives  to  bring  a 
fresh  supply  of  silver,' ^"'^ 

In  1765,  therefore,  these  fresh  supplies  came  to 
an  end.  The  gold  coinage,  devised  to  supply  the 
deficiency  in  1766,  only  made  matters  worse.  Dur- 
ing the  two  following  years  internal  trafiic  ceased, 
and  the  whole  population,  English  and  native,  at 
length  implored  the  Government  to  move  one  way 
or  another  in  the  matter.  '  At  present  the  distress 
is  so  great,'  wrote  the  English  inhabitants  in  1769, 
'  that  every  merchant  in  Calcutta  is  in  danger  of 
becoming  bankrupt,  or  running  a  risk  of  ruin  by 
attachments  on  his  goods.'    '  There  remains  not  sufii- 

'*"•  Letter  dated  27th  November  1750,  printed  by  the  Company  in 
1771.     Financial  Resolution  of  the  20th  Mnrcli  1769,  etc. 
VOL.  L  U 


3o6  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

cient  (currency)  for  the  occasions  and  intercourse  of 
commerce.  .  .  .  The  fair  and  honest  dealer  is  every 
day  prosecuted  to  judgment  in  the  court  without 
remedy,  from  the  impossibihty  of  obtaining  pay- 
ment from  his  debtors.  ...  He  is  thus  urged  by 
his  necessity  to  involve  himself  in  expensive  suits  ; 
he  is  forced  to  defend,  in  order  to  gain  time,  though 
sensible  of  the  justice,  and  desirous  to  pay  the  de- 
mand ;  and  he  is  driven  to  a  hasty  prosecution,  in 
hopes  to  recover  before  judgment  passeth  against 
himself,  though  fully  convinced  of  his  debtor's  wil- 
lingness to  pay  as  soon  as  he  is  able.  His  substance 
in  this  manner  is  wasted,  and  the  distress  which 
follows  is  too  obvious  and  moving  to  need  descrip- 
tion.'^°^  The  '  Humble  Petition  of  the  Armenian 
Merchants  settled  in  Calcutta '  puts  the  case  even 
more  forcibly  :  '  The  necessity  of  coin  now  felt  in 
this  capital,  amongst  the  many  intolerable  evils 
arising  from  it,  affects  every  individual  to  that  de- 
gree, that  the  best  houses,  with  magazines  full  of 
goods,  are  distressed  for  daily  provisions  ;  and  that 
not  only  a  general  bankruptcy  is  to  be  feared,  but  a 
real  famine,  in  the  midst  of  wealth  and  plenty.' 

The  English  merchants  proposed,  by  way  of 
remedy,  to  prosecute  all  who  held  silver,  and  would 
not  give  it  in  exchange  for  the  gold  coins  at  rates 
fixed  by  law.  The  Armenians  took  a  deeper  view. 
They  perceived  the  existence  of  a  real  deficiency 

'"1  Petition  of  the  Mayor's  Court  of  Calcutta  to  the  Honourable 
Harry  Verelst,  dated  Town  Hall,  14th  March  1769,  signed  'John 
Holmes,  Registrar.'     Quoted  from  the  Calcutta  Review,  xxxv.  29. 


SECOND  GOLD  COINAGE,  1769.  307 

which  legislation  could  not  reach,  and  recommended 
that  the  bullion  in  the  country  should  be  utilized  by- 
being  coined.  Silver  was  not  to  be  had,  but  many 
capitalists  held  gold  ;  and  they  proposed  a  general 
coinage  of  the  latter  metal  into  pieces  varying  from 
eight  shillings  to  ;^i,  12s.  sterling,  not  on  the  ground 
that  such  a  currency  would  be  in  itself  a  convenient 
one,  but  because  '  any  coin  whatever  is  better  than 
no  coin  at  all.'^*^^ 

The  Honourable  Harry  Verelst  took  the  advice 
of  these  very  sensible  Armenian  gentlemen.  '  Upon 
a  strict  and  impartial  inquiry/  he  wrote,  '  we  find 
that  this  scarcity  of  specie,  so  severely  felt  by  the 
merchants  here,  is  not  an  accidental  or  fictitious  one, 
nor  confined  to  Calcutta  alone,  but  that  the  same 
indigence  is  spread  over  the  whole  country,'  He 
goes  on  to  express  an  apprehension,  '  that  either  the 
revenue  must  fall  short,  or  be  collected  in  kind,  from 
a  want  of  sufficient  currency  ;'  and  concludes  by 
ordering  a  second  gold  coinage.  But  the  English 
governors  of  Bengal  did  not  at  that  period  possess 
the  data  on  which  to  base  a  successful  currency  re- 
form ;  and  although  Mr.  Verelst  avoided  the  mis- 
take of  fixing  the  legal  denomination  of  the  new 
coins  so  egregiously  above  their  market  value  as  in 
1766,  he  still  overrated  them  by  <^\  per  cent.  The 
events  of  1766,  therefore,  repeated  themselves  in  a 
mitigated  shape.  At  first  the  people  very  gladly 
brought  their  bullion  to  undergo  the  profitable  pro- 

'"^  The   Armenian    Petition   of    1769,   quoted   from   the   CaUutla 
Rc7'icuK  XXXV.  28. 


3o8  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

cess  of  coinage ;  and  the  Council  congratulated 
themselves  on  the  success  of  their  experiment.  But 
presently  the  public  began  to  find  out  that,  while  the 
value  of  gold  mohurs  had  been  artificially  enhanced 
5:^  per  cent.,  the  value  of  rupees  had  been  depre- 
ciated to  an  equal  degree.  They  therefore  with- 
drew the  last  remnant  of  their  silver  from  circula- 
tion ;  and  the  driblet  of  gold  coins  that  issued  from 
the  mint  proved  wholly  inadequate  to  take  the  place 
of  the  national  currency.  Indeed,  the  native  bankers, 
having  learned  wisdom  from  the  losses  of  1766,  de- 
termined to  be  beforehand  with  the  Government 
this  time,  and  refused  to  advance  sums  in  silver 
which  might  be  repaid  a  few  months  later  in  gold 
coins  bearinof  a  fictitious  value.  Before  the  end  of 
the  year  the  Council  found  their  treasury  empty, 
and  complained  that  the  merchants  had  deserted 
their  trade,  and  were  '  locking  up  their  fortunes  in 
their  treasure-chests.' ^°^ 

Even  those  who  held  Sfold  soon  besfan  to  dis- 
trust  the  Company's  efforts  at  a  gold  coinage. 
According  to  the  regulations  of  1766,  a  mohur 
containing  14972  grains  of  pure  gold  passed  for 
fourteen  rupees,  or  at  the  rate  of  io"694  grains  to 
the  rupee ;  according  to  the  regulations  of  1 769, 
the  mohur  contained  i90'o86  grains  of  pure  gold, 
and  passed  for  sixteen  rupees,  or  at  the  rate  of 
1 1  "88  grains  to  the  rupee.  Native  money-changers 
speedily  detected  this,  and  became  afraid  to  have 

^"3  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors, 
dated  25th  September  1769,  para.  39.     I.  O.  R- 


THE  CURRENCY,  1 769-1 7S9.  309 

anything  to  do  with  the  Company's  mint.  They 
knew  that  they  could  always  get  the  market  value 
of  their  gold  as  bullion,  but  it  was  impossible  to  say 
what  liberty  the  English  gentlemen  might  next  be 
pleased  to  take  with  the  coin. 

It  requires  a  strong  effort  of  the  imagination  to 
realize  the  miseries  of  the  next  twenty  years.  The 
great  famine  of  1 769,  as  the  Directors  have  pathe- 
tically recorded,  seemed  to  put  a  finishing  stroke 
to  the  sufferings  of  the  people,  and  the  history  of 
rural  Bengal  becomes  a  narrative  of  severities  for 
wringing  a  constantly  increasing  revenue  out  of  a 
starved  and  depopulated  province.  Warren  Hast- 
ings created  a  security  for  person  and  property, 
such  as  had  never  been  enjoyed  since  the  Mussul- 
man despoilers  rolled  down  on  Hindusthan.  He 
framed  equal  laws,  and  he  did  his  best  to  bring 
them  within  the  reach  of  the  people.  He  under- 
stood the  Bengalis  thoroughly,  aided  every  effort 
to  investigate  their  wants  or  to  interpret  their 
character,  was  munificent  exactly  at  the  time  and 
in  the  manner  to  win  their  admiration,  and  dis- 
played in  all  his  public  appearances  that  prompt, 
unerring  audacity,  so  well  calculated  to  overawe  a 
race  whom  long  oppression  had  stripped  of  self- 
respect.  More  than  this,  Warren  Hastings  really 
loved  the  natives,  and  the  natives  in  return  loved 
and  respected  him  as  they  have  loved  and  respected 
no  Englishman  before  or  after.  He  was  a  true 
Asiatic  prince  of  the  best  type  ;  a  man  who  a  cen- 
tury  earlier   might   have   built   up   an   independent 


3ro  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

empire  that  would  have  held  together  under  twenty 
feeble  successors.  But  in  matters  touching  the 
revenues  he  had  a  heart  of  stone.  Menaced  by 
the  potentates  of  Hindusthan,  all  but  overwhelmed 
by  the  Mahrattas,  plotted  against  by  powerful 
Hindu  subjects,  harassed  by  mutinous  troops, 
bearded  by  his  own  coadjutors  in  council,  he  felt 
that  his  one  source  of  strength  was  the  command 
of  money.  Money  alone  would  keep  up  his  in- 
terest with  the  Court  of  Directors  at  home  ;  money 
alone  would  maintain  their  sovereignty  in  Bengal ; 
and  any  degree  of  fiscal  severity  seemed  to  him  a 
cheap  price  to  pay  for  the  peace  and  security  of  all 
India.  It  could  not  be  expected  that  a  governor  in 
his  position  would  complicate  matters  still  further 
by  currency  measures  which,  however  salutary  in 
the  end,  might  occasion  panic  and  confusion  during 
their  progress.  From  time  to  time,  when  accident 
brought  home  to  him  the  misery  caused  by  the 
debased  and  insufficient  coinage,  he  devised  some 
temporary  palliative ;  but  the  only  substantial  re- 
form which  he  carried  through  was  the  work  of  his 
first  year  of  office. 

Under  native  governments  the  mint  formed  a 
source  of  revenue  ;^°*  a  heavy  royalty  was  habitually 
levied,  and,  when  occasion  demanded,  the  bullion 
brouQrht  to  the  officers  for  coinao;e  was  debased.  In 
order  to  give  the  mint  work,  an  iniquitous  system 
had  been  devised  to  force  the  people  to  have  the 

^"^  Sir  James  Stcuart's  Principles  of  Money  applied  to  the  Present 
State  of  the  Coin  in  Bengal,  p.  3,  4to,  1772. 


THE  AUNT  REFORM  CT^  1 7  7 3.  3 . , 

whole  currency  recoined  every  year.  For  each  year 
that  had  elapsed  since  the  date  stamped  upon  the 
coin,  a  heavy  percentage  was  deducted,  irrespective 
of  actual  deterioration.  For  example  :  a  rupee  that 
had  been  in  use  a  year  lost  three  per  cent,  of  its 
value ;  after  it  had  circulated  two  years  it  lost  five 
per  cent.,  and  this,  too,  although  it  had  suffered 
no  change  in  weight  or  purity.  To  escape  these 
deductions,  capitalists  presented  their  coined  silver 
before  the  end  of  each  year  or  second  year,  and 
so  the  mints  drove  a  flourishino-  business  at  the 
expense  of  the  people.  As  early  as  1771  the 
Bengal  Council  had  pointed  out  the  remedy  for 
this,"^  but  under  Mr.  Cartier's  feeble  rei^rn  nothincr 
ever  received  practical  effect.  In  1773  Warren 
Hastings,  with  his  wonted  contempt  for  half  mea- 
sures, struck  at  the  root  of  the  evil.  He  enacted 
that  no  deduction  should  be  made  from  a  coin,  how- 
ever long  it  might  have  been  in  circulation,  unless 
really  deteriorated ;  and  in  order  to  ensure  obedi- 
ence, he  commanded  that  all  future  issues  should 
bear  one  date,  that  of  1773,  or  as  the  legend  runs 
on  the  rupees,  '  the  1 9th  year  of  the  auspicious 
reign '  of  Shah  Alam.  This  was  the  first  step  the 
Company  had  taken  in  the  right  direction,  and  it 
gave  rise  to  so  many  disputes  that  Warren  Hast- 
ings did  not  venture  on  another.  The  sufferings 
of  the  people  are  graven  deep  on  every  record  of 
those  days ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  turn  over  a  few 
pages   of  any   pul)lic   print,    without    coming    ujwn 

>"*  Letter  to  the  Court  of  Directors,  dated  the  30th  August  1771. 


312  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

irrepressible  evidence  of  the  ruin  and  distrust  be- 
tween man  and  man  occasioned  by  the  debased 
currency.  To  cite  only  two  instances  from  the  first 
Calcutta  paper.  In  May  1780  we  are  told  that  all 
the  shops  in  the  principal  city  of  South-western 
Bengal  remained  shut  for  several  days,  on  account 
of  a  dispute  about  the  value  of  the  sicca  rupee/**^ 
and  only  reopened  when  the  authorities  yielded  to 
the  popular  view.  Not  long  afterwards  '  Honestus ' 
complains  that  the  trade  of  Patna,  the  mercantile 
capital  of  Central  Bengal,  had  entirely  decayed, 
owing  to  the  ruinous  and  constantly  fluctuating 
exchange  between  the  local  and  the  statutory  coin- 
aw.^'^' 

To  such  straits  had  a  debased  currency  brought 
commerce,  when  in  1786  Lord  Cornwallis  received 
charge  of  the  province.  During  his  first  three 
years  of  office,  judicial  and  fiscal  reforms  de- 
manded his  whole  energies  ;  and  in  spite  of  the 
clamours  of  the  Calcutta  newspaper,  and  of  more 
touching  appeals  from  the  rural  population,  he  did 
not  dare  to  meddle  with  the  coinage.  But  he  had 
in  John  Shore  an  adviser  who  thoroughly  under- 
stood the  magnitude  of  the  evil,  and  before  the  end 
of  1789  the  two  friends  had  devised  a  plan  for 
eradicating  it  once  and  for  all.  Suddenly  an  order 
issued  depriving  the  treasury  officers  of  any  discre- 
tion in  taking  or  rejecting  coins  on  the  ground  of 
short  weight.      If  a  rupee  was  the  genuine  product 

>'^«  Hicky'b  Bengal  Gazette  of  the  20th  May  1780. 
1"'  Id.  of  the  1 6th  September  1780. 


C URRENC V  REFORMS  OF  it^jo.  313 

of  a  recognised  mint,  no  matter  to  what  extent  it 
had  been  dipped  or  drilled,  the  treasury  officers 
were  to  receive  it  by  weight  according  to  fixed  rates 
hung  up  in  the  collector's  office.  This  single  stroke 
put  an  end  to  the  indefinite  and  arbitrary  discount 
which  the  provincial  treasurers  had  from  time 
immemorial  exacted  on  all  coin  except  siccas  of 
the  current  year.  Before  they  had  recovered  their 
consternation  another  order  arrived,  rendering  them 
responsible  not  merely  for  the  net  sums  received, 
but  for  the  actual  coin  in  which  it  was  paid.  This 
completed  their  ruin.  Many  of  them  had  invested 
a  fortune  in  bribing  their  way  up  to  the  post  of 
treasurer, — a  post  which  in  those  days  yielded  a 
salary  of  ^40  per  annum,  and  an  opportunity  of 
making  ^4000  more.  Besides  '  playing  with  the 
deposits,'  varying  from  ^5000  to  ;^30,ooo,  the 
treasurers  had  always  enjoyed  the  privilege  of 
deducting  what  allowance  they  pleased  from  each 
coin  when  they  received  it,  and  then  of  returning  it 
to  circulation,  as  payment  for  the  mercantile  invest- 
ment, at  rates  fixed  by  themselves.  But  now  these 
profitable  operations  came  abruptly  to  an  end.  Lord 
Cornwallis  divided  the  currency  into  two  classes  : 
the  first  consisting  of  the  statutory  coinage,  to  be 
taken  at  its  full  legal  denomination  ;  the  second  or 
deteriorated  sort,  to  be  received  at  the  published 
rates,  and  sent  off  at  the  end  of  each  month  to 
Calcutta.  The  mere  fact  of  some  deduction  re- 
quiring to  be  made  from  the  nominal  value  of  a 
rupee,  he  accepted  as  conclusive  proof  of  its  unht- 


314  THE  ANNALS  OP  RURAL  BENGAL. 

ncss  to  be  returned  to  circulation,  and  commanded 
in  every  such  case  that  the  treasury  officers  should 
specify  the  rates  at  which  they  received  the  coin  in 
an  invoice  to  be  forwarded  along  with  the  coin 
itself,  to  the  Presidency  mint.^^^ 

The  treasury  officers  grumbled,  shirked,  dis- 
obeyed. In  his  first  ardour  for  reform,  Warren 
Hastings  had  issued  a  similar  order,  and  they  had 
managed  to  evade  it.  But  they  were  now  to 
learn  the  difference  between  a  spasmodic  although 
talented  autocracy,  and  the  persistent  watchfulness 
of  a  well-orQfanized  central  Government.  Durinof 
four  years  Lord  Cornwallis  had  been  painfully  con- 
structing that  series  of  checks  and  counter-checks 
on  the  local  officials  which  still  forms  a  distin- 
guishing feature  of  the  Indian  administration. 
Before  the  end  of  1789  he  held  lists  of  the  names 
of  all  natives  in  the  Government  employ,^^^  and  the 
rebellious  treasurers  found  themselves  suddenly 
entangled  in  a  net  of  artfully-contrived  statements, 
vouchers,  and  monthly  returns.  The  slightest 
touch  of  his  Lordship's  finger  crushed  where  it  fell, 
and  John  Shore  had  taught  him  a  sure  method  of 
reaching  the  delinquents.  He  seldom  condescended 
to  make  any  reference  to  the  treasurers  themselves  ; 
but  he  visited  the  English  collector  of  the  district 
with  unsparing  fines  for  the  offences  of  his  subor- 

'"*  Order  of  the  23d  June  1790,  forwarded  with  a  letter  from  the 
Board  of  Revenue  to  the  Collector  of  Beerbhoom,  dated  the  30th  id.^ 
etc.     B.  R.  R. 

^"^  From  the  same  to  the  same,  dated  7th  April  1789.  Regula- 
tions of  the  Sth  June  1787,  Art.  18.     B.  R.  R.  and  C.  O.  R. 


DEBASED  COINAGE  CALLED  LY.  315 

cUnates — offences  which  that  officer  had  hitherto 
either  winked  at  or  regarded  with  indifference. 
Even  Mr.  Keating's  fiscal  ardour  failed  to  avert 
these  penalties  ;  and  when  Lord  Cornwall  is  found 
the  treasurers  trifling  with  his  currency  reform,  he 
extended  the  system  of  fines,  which  had  formerly 
applied  only  to  unpunctuality  in  transmitting  trea- 
sure, to  every  irregularity  in  despatching  accounts 
or  returns,  and  to  every  defect  in  their  form.^^"  For 
these  mulcts  and  indignities  the  collectors  took 
ample  vengeance  on  the  native  subordinate  whose 
delinquency  had  caused  them,  and  the  monthly 
transmission  of  depreciated  coins  soon  became  a 
matter  of  undisputed  routine. 

But  though  all  resistance  on  the  part  of  the 
treasurers  was  over,  another  and  far  more  serious 
struggle  had  commenced.  The  debased  coinage 
formed  two-thirds  of  the  provincial  currency,  and  the 
very  success  of  the  measure  for  calHng  it  in  denuded 
the  rural  population  of  the  means  of  purchasing  the 
necessaries  of  life.  The  prices  of  local  produce 
sank  to  nominal  rates,  not  because  grain  was  really 
cheap,  but  because  money  was  dear  ;  and  the  village 
usurers,  demanding  a  settlement  of  accounts  as 
usual  at  harvest-time,  received  the  husbandman's 
whole  crops  in  return  for  a  pound  or  thirty  shillings 
advanced  to  him  in  spring.  In  the  large  towns,  where 
the  statutory  coinage  more  abounded,  the  calling  in 
of  the  debased  rupees  occasioned  hardly  any  drain, 

""  Circular  of  the  Ijoard  of  Revenue,  dated  20th  September  1790. 
?>.  R.  R. 


3i6  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

and  did  not  affect  prices.  The  corn-dealers  there- 
fore bought  up  the  whole  grain  of  the  country  at 
the  nominal  rates  prevailing  in  the  rural  parts,  in 
order  to  sell  it  or  export  it  at  the  prices  prevailing 
in  the  cities  ;  and  the  miserable  peasantry,  after 
reaping  a  good  harvest,  found  themselves  in  the 
midst  of  a  famine. 

The  urgent  necessity  for  funds  to  prosecute  the 
war  against  Tippoo  intensified  the  distress.  All 
the  bad  coin  was  swept  off  to  Calcutta  to  be  melted, 
while  all  the  good  coin  was  swept  off  to  Calcutta  for 
exportation  to  Madras.  The  triumph  of  the  trea- 
sury officers  seemed  at  hand ;  for  no  Government 
would  dare,  they  argued,  to  strip  the  country  entirely 
of  its  coin,  and  the  currency  reform  of  1790  w^ould 
end  as  the  currency  reform  of  1772  had  ended — by- 
first  causing  a  great  deal  of  misery,  and  then  being 
abandoned.  For  a  moment  the  fate  of  the  measure 
did  indeed  trernble  in  the  balance.  The  crisis  found 
Lord  Cornwallis  involved  in  changes  that  had  un- 
settled  the  whole  judicial  and  fiscal  administration  ; 
a  war  which  threatened  the  very  existence  of  the 
English  in  India  raged  in  Madras  ;  a  real  famine 
was  depopulating  the  Deccan  ;  and  would  he  now 
persist  in  creating  an  artificial  famine  in  the  one 
province  which  remained  unscathed  ?  But  Lord 
Cornwallis  considered  that,  after  all,  it  was  but  a 
choice  between  two  g^reat  evils.  The  sufferinof 
caused  by  the  measure  had  far  exceeded  his  worst 
apprehensions ;  but  that  suffering  was  now  half 
over,  and  to  yield  would  be  to  return  for  an  inde- 


CURRENC  V  CRISIS  OF  1 790-9 1 .  317 

finite  period  to  the  miseries  of  a  debased  currency. 
Besides,  the  suffering  incident  to  the  reform  would 
all  have  to  be  endured  over  again.  Fortified  by 
these  considerations,  Lord  Cornwall  is  turned  a 
mercifully  deaf  ear  to  the  cries  of  the  people. 

The  winter  of  1790-91  passed,  but  brought  no 
relief  to  Bengal.  Before  calling  in  the  debased 
currency,  the  Government  had  made  provision  for 
returning  the  specie  when  recoined,  but  somehow 
the  new  rupees  did  not  reach  the  hands  of  the 
people.  The  old  Calcutta  mint  was  set  vigorously 
to  work,  new  mints  were  established  at  the  three 
great  provincial  centres,^^^  and  the  head  of  each  dis- 
trict received  orders  to  take  all  coins  that  micrht  be 
offered  to  them  at  the  local  market  rates,  giving 
back  statutory  rupees  in  payment.""*  At  first  the 
people  readily  brought  their  debased  currency  to  be 
exchaneed  for  the  new  coinao-e  ;  but  the  collectors 
presently  found  their  supply  of  legal  rupees  ex- 
hausted, and  had  either  to  refuse  to  receive  the 
local  currency,  or  else  to  take  it  on  credit.  Then 
came  the  pressing  expenses  of  war,  and  the  orders, 
peremptorily  repeated,  to  suspend  all  payments  from 
the  district  treasuries,  except  the  diet  allowance  for 
the  prisoners,  and  the  rewards  for  killing  tigers.""' 
The  poor  people  had  given  in  their  little  hoards  of 

111  Dacca,  Moorshedabad,  Patna. 

1'-  Circular  Order  of  the  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  2d  Au^st  1790. 
B.  R.  R. 

1'^  Letters  from  the  Accountant-Gencral  to  the  Collector,  dated 
15th  November,  aglh  December  1790,  and  28th  January  1791.  In 
salt  or  opium  districts  these  articles  were  also  excepted.     B.  K.  R. 


3iS  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

old  rupees ;  when  they  asked  for  new  ones  in  re- 
turn, the  collectors  with  much  shamefacedness  had 
to  tell  them  that  all  disbursements  were  stopped. 

On  the  ist  of  January  1791  a  hopeful  but  mo- 
mentary gleam  flashed  across  the  political  sky.  The 
cumbrous,  slow-working  process  of  melting,  assay- 
ing, and  recoining  had  at  last  some  visible  results 
to  show,  and  on  the  first  day  of  the  year  an  issue 
of  '  new-milled  rupees '  took  place  simultaneously  at 
the  four  mints.  But  the  good  news  had  scarcely 
reached  the  rural  parts  before  another  order  came, 
more  rigidly  enforcing  the  suspension  of  disburse- 
ments from  the  district  treasuries,  and  the  people 
had  the  satisfaction  of  learning  that  their  old  rupees 
had  been  recoined  only  to  be  exported  for  war 
exigencies  to  Madras. 

But  early  in  spring  the  pressure,  in  an  unac- 
countable manner,  became  lighter.  The  truth  is, 
that  the  crops  which  the  village  bankers  and  corn- 
dealers  had  sent  to  the  cities  in  December,  or  ex- 
ported to  Madras,  were  now  paid  for,  and  the  price 
was  flowing  back  to  the  districts  in  the  shape  of 
'  new-milled  rupees.'  The  winter  grain  trade  had 
realized  unusual  profits,  and  the  rural  capitalists  had 
therefore  an  unusual  quantity  of  money  to  lend. 
The  borrowing  classes  profited  accordingly,  and 
every  one  who  wanted  an  advance  on  his  spring 
crops  could  get  it.  The  crisis  was  in  truth  at  an 
end ;  the  calm  resolution  of  the  great  English  chief 
had  conquered  both  in  the  Council  and  the  field :  a 
temporary  loan  at  1 2  per  cent,  rapidly  filled  up,  the 


RELIEr  COMES  AT  LAST.  319 

local  treasuries  resumed  payment,  and  the  village 
elders,  as  they  calmly  sucked  their  hookas,  began 
to  question  whether,  after  all,  the  Company's  sway 
had  really  come  to  an  end. 

By  this  time  Lord  Cornwallis  was  at  the  head 
of  the  British  army  ;  but  from  under  his  tent  in  the 
southernmost  corner  of  India,  daily  proofs  of  his 
persistent  watchfulness  shot  forth  to  every  extremity 
of  BeuQ^al.  He  had  indeed  obtained  the  highest 
administrative  triumph.  He  had  first  constructed 
his  executive  machinery,  and  then  breathed  so  much 
of  his  own  vitality  into  it  as  to  render  it  independent 
of  himself  The  able  and  conscientious  men  to 
whom  he  had  entrusted  the  Currency  Reform,  no 
sooner  felt  the  country  a  little  eased,  than  they  pro- 
ceeded to  measures  to  which  the  whole  traditions 
of  the  Company's  government  in  India  were  op- 
posed. Its  first  financial  experiment  had  been  to 
affix  a  legal  value  to  gold,  with  what  results  we 
already  know  ;  and  Lord  Cornwallis,  clearly  perceiv- 
ing that  the  unregulated  double  currency  lay  at  the 
root  of  half  the  commercial  distress,  had  put  a  stop 
to  the  coinage  of  gold  pieces  in  1 788  as  an  indispens- 
able preliminary  to  his  reforms.^^*  During  the  terrible 
pressure  of  1 790  he  had  yielded  so  far,  however,  as 
to  endeavour  to  relieve  the  drain  on  the  silver  cur- 
rency by  resuming  for  a  time  the  coinage  of  gold 
mohurs;^'^  but  before  the  close  of  1791  this  pres- 

"*  Order  of  the  3d  Ucccniber  1788. 

"'  Order  dated  21st  July   1790,  comnninicated  in  Board  of  Re- 
venue's letter  to  the  Collector,  dated  23d  id.     C.  R.  R. 


320  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

sure  had  exhausted  itself,  and  Lord  Cornwallis  de- 
termined by  one  bold  stroke  to  get  rid,  once  and 
for  all,  of  the  perils  of  a  twofold  medium  of  circu- 
lation. One  governor  after  another  had  failed  in 
his  attempts  to  make  a  double  currency  work 
harmoniously.  The  public  was  again  pressing  for 
further  regulations  and  penal  enactments  on  the 
subject,  when  a  proclamation  issued  doing  away 
with  every  check  on  the  traffic  of  the  precious 
metals,  and  declaring  them  ordinary  articles  of  com- 
merce. '  Whereas,'  ran  the  document,  '  various  ap- 
plications have  of  late  been  made  to  the  Superin- 
tendent of  Police  by  individuals,  in  consequence  of 
the  difficulty  which  they  have  experienced  in  pro- 
curing silver  coin,  to  compel  the  shroffs  (money- 
changers) to  furnish  silver  in  exchange  for  gold 
coin,  and  to  punish  them  if  they  attempt  in  this 
exchange  to  value  the  orold  mohur  at  less  than  what 
appears  to  have  been  its  former  market  value  :  The 
Governor-General  in  Council  has  therefore  deter- 
mined, that  in  future  the  sale  of  gold  and  silver  coin 
shall  be  as  free  and  unrestrained  in  every  respect 
as  the  sale  of  gold  and  silver  bullion,  and  the  ex- 
changeable value  or  price  of  each  determined  by 
the  course  of  trade,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  price 
of  every  other  commodity  that  comes  into  the 
market.'^* 

After  a  year's   trial  of  the  new  system.    Lord 

^^^  Dated  Fort-William,  Public  Department,  i8th  November  1791, 
signed  E.  Hay,  Secretary  to  the  Government,  and  published  ui  ex- 
teiiso  in  the  Calcitita  Gazette  oi  ist  December  1791. 


SUCCESS  OF  THE  CURRENCY  REFORM.      32  i 

Cornwallis  decided  that  tlie  time  had  come  to  j^^et 
rid  of  the  old  defaced  coinage  by  compulsory  mea- 
sures.^" The  public  had  been  allowed  ample  op- 
portunity to  change  its  old  coin  for  new  '  without 
any  charge  whatever  ;'  and  he  now  ordered  that  after 
the  first  day  of  the  Bengali  year  1200  (loth  April 
1794  A.D.)  the  full  coinage  should  be  the  only  legal 
tender,  and  that  '  no  person  should  be  permitted  to 
recover'  in  the  courts  '  any  sum  of  money  under  a 
bond  or  other  writing,  by  which  any  species  of 
rupees,  excepting  the  sicca  rupees  of  the  19th  sun,"** 
is  stipulated  to  be  paid.'  In  1794  another  twelve- 
month's grace  was  given,'^^  but  the  year  1795  saw  the 
long-deferred  triumph  of  the  one  strong  will.  The 
new  and  uniform  currency  had  at  last  completely 
ousted  the  multitudinous,  battered,  and  debased 
rupees  which  had  so  long  afflicted  the  people. 

In  adopting  the  principle  of  non-interference, 
Lord  Cornwallis  displayed  a  self-taught  knowledge 
of  the  science  of  finance,  which  England  did  not 
attain  till  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  and  which 
several  European  countries  have  yet  to  learn.  Not 
till  1 8 19  did  Parliament  do  away  with  the  restric- 
tions on  the  foreign  trade  in  bullion  ;^*°  and  up  to 
a  few  years  of  the  time  when  the  isolated   Indian 

^"  Declaration  dated  Fort-William,  Public  Department,  24th 
October  1792,  signed  J.  L.  Chaiivct,  Sub-Secretary,  published  in  ex- 
Ictiso  in  the  Calcutta  Gazette  of  ist  Novemljcr  1792. 

^'^  I.e.  Rupees  struck  by  the  Company,  whose  dies  uniformly  bore 
the  19th  year,  *sun,'  of  the  Emperor  Shah  Alam's  reign,  equivalent 
to  A.D.  1773,  for  reasons  previously  stated. 

"8  Proclamation  dated  28th  June  1794. 

'-"  59  Geo.  HI.  c.  49. 

VOL.  I.  X 


322  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

statesman  carried  out  his  reforms,  the  Louis  d'or 
continued  to  be  rated  at  a  nominal  value  by  the 
French  mint,  to  the  stoppage  of  trade,  and  even- 
tually to  the  complete  banishment  of  gold  from  the 
currency.^"^ 

From  these  measures — which,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  have  hitherto  found  no  historian — the  com- 
mercial development  of  rural  Bengal  dates.  The 
Indian  coinage  remains  substantially  as  Lord  Corn- 
wallis  left  it ;  silver  being  the  standard  medium  of 
circulation,  and  gold,  whether  in  the  shape  of  mohurs 
or  of  the  recently  introduced  sovereigns,  passing  as 
bullion  at  variable  rates.  But  with  the  coinage  un- 
altered, the  currency  has  undergone  a  great  change. 
Mr.  James  Wilson  did  for  India  under  the  Crown 
what  Lord  Cornwallis  in  his  financial  capacity  did 
for  India  under  the  Company  :  he  rendered  the 
circulating  medium  equal  to  the  demands  upon  it. 
To  Mr.  Wilson's  paper  currency  rural  Bengal  owes 
the  means  by  which  she  has  been  enabled,  without 
panic  or  even  inconvenience,  to  hurry  along  that 
career  of  productive  energy  which  has  been  opened 
up  to  her  during  the  last  ten  years. 

Next  to  Mr,  Keating's  duties  as  collector  of  the 
revenues  and  Government  banker,  were  his  func- 
tions as  judicial  and  magisterial  head  of  the  district. 
These  last,  however,  seem  to  have  given  him 
but  little  trouble.  So  loner  as  the  banditti  did  not 
actually  depopulate  the  country,  and  thereby  dis- 
turb the  collection  of  the  land-tax,  he  had  no  busl- 

^-^  Traite  de  I'Economie  Politique,  par  M.  Say,  tome  i.  p.  393. 


THE  POLICE.  323 

ness  to  interfere  ;  when  their  depredations  reached 
this  point,  he  sent  out  troops  against  them.  We 
have  seen  how  energetic  and  successful  he  proved 
himself  in  the  latter  operation  ;  but  it  is  impossible 
not  to  perceive  that  the  Company's  servants,  or  at 
least  the  undistinouished  mass  of  them — and  to  this 
class  Mr.  Keating  belongs — interpreted  their  duties 
entirely  from  a  fiscal  point  of  view.  Mr.  Keating's 
ablest  reports  on  the  police  are  written  not  in  his 
magisterial  capacity,  but  as  collector.  His  fears  are 
not  for  the  security  of  the  subject,  but  for  the  reali- 
zation of  the  land-tax.  It  was  not  a  part  of  his  duty 
to  protect  private  property,  nor  did  he  attempt  to 
do  it.  His  criminal  jurisdiction  was  limited  to  the 
punishment  of  petty  offenders,^" — a  very  simple  pro- 
cess, not  even  involving  a  written  sentence  ;  and  in 
the  only  case  he  deemed  worthy  of  record — to  wit. 
a  jail  outbreak — the  papers  disclose  him  rather  as  a 
vindictive  officer  than  as  a  dispassionate  judge. 

The  police  still  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  old 
native  functionaries  ;  and,  contrasted  with  its  abuses, 
the  little  imperfections  of  the  fiscal  and  judicial 
systems  vanish.  It  was  divided  into  two  orders  ; 
one  charged  with  wardinof  the  frontier,  the  other 
with  the  internal  peace  of  the  district.  Relics  o{ 
both  survive  at  the  present  day,  but  the  first  class 
has  ceased  to  do  any  harm  by  being  stripped  of 
its  official  functions,  while  the  second  still  remains 
as  a  plague-spot  in  the  rural  administration.  The 
frontier  police,  ghai-iuals,  differed  very  much  as  to 

1-2  Judicial  Regulation,  No.  x\ii.  1   5.      17S7. 


324  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

social  status,  but  agreed  so  far  as  the  possession  of 
'  grants  of  land  situated  on  the  edge  of  the  hilly 
country,  and  held  on  condition  of  guarding  the  ghats 
or  passes.' ^^^  They  consisted  for  the  most  part  of 
adventurers  from  Upper  India,  Afghans  and  Raj- 
puts, who  were  wont  to  hire  out  their  northern 
vigour  and  trenchant  swords  to  the  aristocracy  of 
Lower  Bengal.  Sometimes  they  pretended  to  a 
sacred  character,  and  a  curious  although  not  very 
perfect  analogy  might  be  drawn  between  some  of 
them  and  the  religious  knights  of  mediaeval  Europe. 
Nothing,  indeed,  overawed  the  wild  frontier  tribes  so 
effectually  as  a  union  of  the  saint  with  the  warrior, 
and  the  Persian  records  of  Beerbhoom  bear  witness 
to  the  high  value  which  the  rajahs  set  upon  a  hermit 
ghat-wal.  On  one  occasion  the  prince,  hearing  that 
a  holy  man  had  come  from  the  north,  offered  him  a 
sum  of  money  along  with  a  tract  of  forest  lands  in 
western  Beerbhoom,  on  condition  of  his  guarding 
the  passes.  The  saint  replied  that  he  was  willing 
to  live  on  the  frontier,  but  that  he  wanted  only  as 
much  forest  as  would  furnish  sticks  for  his  fire,  and 
only  land  enough  for  a  tank  in  which  to  perform  his 
ablutions. ^^* 

In  the  old  records  the  frontier  police  appear  as 
hired  soldiers  rather  than  as  landholders.  Their 
tenure  did  not  amount  to  a  proprietary  right  in 
the  border  lands,  but  only  to  a  right  to  receive  a 

^^3  Decision  of  the  High  fourt  (Calcutta)  in  re  Man  Ranjan 
Singh  V.  Raja  Lilanand  Singh. 

^**  Referred  to  in  a  Persian  Ruidad  of  Ujja  Alia  Khan,  dated  13th 
June  1848.     B.  R.  R. 


THE  FRONTIER  POLICE.  325 

certain  allowance,  to  be  collected  by  themselves  out 
of  the  rent  of  those  lands ;  and  vernacular  docu- 
ments speak  of  them  as  the  dcpiities^'^^  of  the  rajah, 
not  as  his  fief-holders.  Their  appointment,  how- 
ever, had  a  strong  tendency  to  become  hereditary ; 
and  Mr.  Keating,  reporting  on  them  in  1790,  states 
that  '  all  the  existing  ghat-wals  have  succeeded  by 
lineal  descent.'^-*'  On  being  called  upon,  however, 
to  state  their  rights,  only  two  came  forward ;  and 
these  claimed  upon  a  tenure ^""^  which  the  courts, 
following  the  Mohammedan  law,  had  expressly  de- 
clared not  to  be  hereditary,  and  one  in  which  long 
possession  cannot  make  good  the  original  defect  in 
title.  The  British  Government,  however,  always 
willing  to  construe  favourably  prescriptive  rights, 
while  divesting  the  frontier  police  of  their  duties, 
practically  allowed  them  to  remain  in  possession  of 
their  privileges,  though  it  was  not  till  18 14  that  the 
Legislature  defined  their  rights. '■' 

How  this  border  force  discharged  its  duties 
under  native  rule.  Chapter  ii.  has  disclosed.  When 
the  English  assumed  charge  of  the  district,  they 
found  the  hill-men  free  to  roam  in  and  out  of  it  at 
pleasure,  and  during  the  Company's  first  attempts 
at  internal  administration  the  frontier  police  appear 
upon  the  scene  only  twice ;  in  the  one  instance  as 

^^*  E.  D.     Darkhwast  of  Lochand  Narayan  Deo.     B.  R.  I^- 

120  Report,  dated  i8th  November  1790.     B.  R.  R. 

^^'^  The  tenure  of  Jaghir. 

128  Regulation  xxix.  of  1814.  *  A  Regulation  for  the  Settlement  of 
certain  Mclials  in  the  district  of  Beerbhoom,  usually  denominated 
the  Ghaut-waullee  Mebals.'     High  Court  Rulings,  etc. 


326  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

fugitives  from   the  banditti,  in  the  other  as  their 
leaders. 

The  internal  police  was  administered  upon  a 
similar  plan,  and  with  similar  results.  The  rajah 
divided  his  territory  into  sections  of  very  irregular 
size,  and  placed  each  under  the  care  of  a  native 
officer,  whose  chief  business,  judging  from  the  re- 
cords, was  to  assist  the  land-stewards  in  collecting 
the  rents.  To  this  end  he  had  a  certain  number  of 
troopers  and  foot  soldiers  under  him,  the  main  body 
of  whom  lived  in  quarters  around  his  house  ;  and 
the  little  cantonment  thus  formed  passed  under  the 
name  of  a  thana,  and  was  sometimes  dignified  with 
a  fort.  The  chief  officer,  or  thaiiadar,  was  sup- 
ported either  by  an  assignment  on  the  rents  or  by 
an  allotment  of  land  ;  in  the  former  case  he  paid  his 
subordinates  in  wages,  in  the  latter  by  small  rent- 
free  farms.  The  thanadar's  office,  like  that  of  the 
ghat-wals,  had  a  tendency  to  become  hereditary, 
but  not  to  the  same  extent,  as  the  rajah  had  him 
more  under  his  eye ;  and  however  long  the  post 
might  have  been  in  a  family,  a  succession  only  took 
place  by  a  new  and  formal  appointment.  Besides 
the  establishment  at  the  sectional  headquarters — 
the  thana — one  or  more  subordinates  were  stationed 
in  each  important  village  to  assist  in  collecting  the 
rents,  to  distrain  the  goods  of  defaulters,  and  to  see 
that  the  ryots  did  not  desert  their  lands.  In  unim- 
portant hamlets  these  officials  collected  the  rents 
themselves,  and  everywhere  they  seemed  to  have 
been  specially  charged  with  the  excise  and   other 


THE  FISCAL  POLICE.  327 

miscellaneous  imposts  which  the  rajah  levied.  In 
some  districts  they  were  paid  direct  from  the  thana ; 
in  others,  as  in  Beerbhoom  and  Bishenpore,  where 
the  rajahs  had  maintained  a  quasi  independence, 
and  where  Hindu  customs  had  successfully  with- 
stood Moslem  centralization,  these  village  officials 
enjoyed  small  grants  of  rent-free  land.  They  in 
fact  stepped  into  the  places  of  the  hereditary  vil- 
lage watch  of  ancient  Hindu  times,  and  in  a 
purely  Hindu  principality  like  Bishenpore  some- 
times lineally  represented  the  original  families. 
But  not  even  in  Bishenpore  was  their  office 
acknowledged  to  be  hereditary,  and  on  each  suc- 
cession a  new  appointment  issued  from  the  thana- 
dar,  as  on  each  succession  of  a  thanadar  a  new 
appointment  issued  from  the  rajah. 

It  will  be  objected  that  I  am  describing  revenue 
officers,  not  policemen.  The  objection  is  perfectly 
sound ;  nevertheless  my  description  is  a  faithful  one 
of  the  only  police  then  known.  Under  a  vigorous 
landholder  the  thanadar's  duties  were  chiefly  fiscal  ; 
under  an  inert  or  a  corrupt  one  he  became  a  mere 
plunderer.  The  landholder,  however,  was  respon- 
sible for  the  security  of  Government  property  pass- 
ing through  his  district,  and  the  thanadars  were 
responsible  to  the  landholder,  so  that  they  did  in 
some  respect  perform  the  duties  of  a  police.  This 
liability  gave  rise  to  a  popular  notion  that  they  were 
practically  responsible  for  all  property  within  their 
jurisdiction  ;  but  however  the  fact  may  originally 
have  stood,  the  responsibility  had  been   practically 


328  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

confined  to  Government  property  under  recent  Mus- 
sulman rule.  Lord  Cornwallis  endeavoured,  indeed, 
to  extend  this  liability  to  depredations  on  private 
property,  but  he  failed. ^'^^  Public  opinion  declared 
against  the  proceeding ;  the  Calcutta  Gazette  dis- 
tinctly states  that  practically  the  responsibility  was 
a  dead  letter ;  and  while  Mr.  Keating  assured  the 
Government  that  robberies  took  place  every  day, 
he  attempted  on  only  three  occasions  to  enforce  the 
responsibility.  On  two  of  these  occasions  the  land- 
holder was  compelled  to  make  good  the  plunder  of 
Government  treasure-parties,  on  the  third  to  find 
and  restore  certain  articles  belonofino-  to  the  Com- 
pany's  investment  which  had  been  stolen ;  but  on 
not  a  single  occasion  was  the  responsibility  enforced 
on  behalf  of  private  sufferers. 

Nevertheless  the  province  had  paid  annually  the 
enormous  sum  of  ^360,000  for  a  police.  It  can 
never  be  too  distinctly  remembered  that  the  treaty 
of  1 765  only  entrusted  the  fiscal  administration  to 
the  Company,  leaving  criminal  justice  and  the  police 
to  the  Nawab,  who  received  from  our  treasury 
^r 80,000  for  personal  expenses,  and  ^360,000  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  courts  and  a  sufficient 
establishment  of  police.^^°  Until  1790  the  Nawab 
retained  the  style  and  the  responsibilities  of  chief 
magistrate.  He  left  the  duties  wholly  unperformed. 
Between  1765  and  1769  he  did  not  even  pretend  to 

12a  Even  this  attempt  only  applied  to  ghat-wals,  not  to  thanadars. 
Letter  from  Board  of  Revenue  to  the  Collector,  May  1789. 

130  <  Agreement  between  the  Nabob  Nudjum  al  Dowla  and  the 
Company,'  dated  Fort- William.  30th  September  1765. 


THE  CRIMINAL  ADMINISTRATION.        329 

do  what  he  had  promised  :  the  regular  course  of 
justice  was  at  a  stand  ;  '  but  every  man  exercised  it 
who  had  the  power  of  compelling-  others  to  submit 
to  his  decision. '^^^  Warren  Hastings  insisted  that 
the  Nawab  should  at  least  make  some  show  of 
doing  what  he  was  paid  for.  In  1772,3  Supreme 
Criminal  Court  was  accordingly  established  in  Cal- 
cutta, with  a  subordinate  tribunal  in  each  district  ; 
but  in  1775  the  Supreme  Criminal  Court  returned 
to  Moorshedabad,  the  residence  of  the  Nawab,  and 
continued  there  till  1 790.  The  tainted  air  of  the 
Nawab's  ante-chambers  stifled  justice  of  any  sort ; 
eunuchs  and  concubines  devoured  the  funds  that 
should  have  provided  security  of  person  and  pro- 
perty for  the  poor;  and  from  1775  to  1790  the 
whole  criminal  administration  consisted  in  the  sale 
of  judicial  places  to  uneducated  and  depraved 
Mussulmans,  who  looked  upon  a  court  as  a  secure 
den  for  extortion. 

The  Company  had  no  legal  right  to  interfere. 
Its  duty,  as  fixed  by  treaty,  was  to  collect  the 
revenue  ;  and  the  same  authority  that  invested  it 
with  fiscal  functions,  had  also  appointed  the  Nawab 
to  the  criminal  administration.  Warren  Hastings, 
with  his  usual  determination  to  sec  justice  done, 
temporarily  usurped  the  right  of  supervising  the 
Nawab's  courts,  but  he  speedily  drew  back  ;  nor  did 
Lord  Cornwallis  venture  to  touch  this  most  clamant 
evil  during  the  first  four  years  of  his  rule.  The 
Company    not    having    the    power    to    compel    the 

'^'  Letter  from  the  President  and  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors. 


330  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

Nawab  to  keep  up  the  regular  police  (Foujdari 
establishment),  did  the  best  it  could  with  the  fiscal 
police  (Thanadari  establishment),  and  soon  the 
very  existence  of  the  regular  Foujdari  police  was 
forgotten. 

But  in  1790  Lord  Cornwallls  attacked  this  last 
stronghold  of  Mussulman  misrule. ^^^  He  stripped 
the  Nawab  of  his  grossly  abused  judicial  authority, 
contemptuously  leaving  his  allowances  as  they  then 
stood,  and  established  a  Supreme  Criminal  Court 
in  Calcutta,  presided  over  by  the  Governor-General 
and  Council,  and  four  Courts  of  Circuit,  with  two 
experienced  English  officers  at  the  head  of  each. 
Offences  too  petty  for  these  courts  came  under  the 
cognizance  of  the  English  magistrate  of  the  district. 
A  Supreme  Court  in  Calcutta  supervised  the  whole. 
The  Muhammadan  criminal  code,  with  certain  mer- 
ciful modifications,  continued  to  be  the  law  of  the 
land,  and  learned  Mussulmans  sat  as  assessors  to 
explain  its  provisions  to  the  presiding  magistrate 
or  judge. 

The  new  courts  at  first  tried  to  conduct  the 
criminal  administration  through  the  agency  of  the 
fiscal  {i.e.  Thanadari)  police.  It  formed,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  only  police  then  existing,  and  it  proved 
wholly  incompetent  for  the  duties  now  laid  upon  it. 
Indeed,  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  Government 
had  any  right  to  saddle  the  fiscal  police  with  these 
new  functions,  and  it  soon  became  evident  that  the 
collectors  had  no  power  to  exact  their  performance. 

^^^  Judicial  Regulation  xxvi.  of  1790. 


A  REGULAR  POLICE  FORMED.  331 

The  Thanadars  appear  as  frequently  on  the  side  of 
the  banditti  as  on  that  of  the  authorities.  Even 
the  strong  -  minded  Mr.  Keating  could  not  work 
with  them.  They  were  not,  in  fact,  his  servants. 
He  did  not  appoint  them ;  he  could  not  dismiss 
them  ;  he  could  not  even  punish  them  without  '  a 
regular  process  before  the  magistrate,'  and  he 
bitterly  complains  that  there  are  '  no  written  regu- 
lations for  their  general  conduct,  or  to  limit  the 
boundaries  of  their  authority.' ^^^  After  two  years 
of  vexation,  Lord  Cornwallis  saw  that  it  was 
useless  to  give  courts  without  providing  them 
with  executive  machinery,  and  determined  to  con- 
struct a  regular  force  out  of  the  fiscal  police.  He 
divided  the  Thanadari  establishment  into  two 
classes,— those  who  were  attached  to  the  Thana 
and  received  wages,  and  those  who  were  stationed 
in  the  villages  and  paid  by  grants  of  rent-free  land. 
The  first  class  he  took  entirely  out  of  the  land- 
holders' hands,  paid  it  from  the  treasury,  and  sub- 
jected it  directly  to  the  magistrate's  control.  But 
two  excellent  reasons  existed  for  leaving  the  second 
class  alone.  In  the  first  place,  the  fiscal  village 
police  in  districts  such  as  Beerbhoom  and  Bishen- 
pore,  had  its  roots  deep  in  the  national  institutions 
of  the  Hindus,  and  Lord  Cornwallis  strove  in  every 
matter  to  adapt  national  institutions  to  modern 
necessities.  They  formed  a  genuine  although 
somewhat  transformed    relic  of  the  ancient  village 

'"■''  To  John   White  and   Thomas  Brooke,   Esqs.,  Judges   of  the 
Court  of  Circuit,  dated  7th  August  1791.     B.  J.  R. 


332  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

watch,  and  as  such  he  was  anxious  that  they  should 
stand.  In  the  second  place,  they  would  cost 
Government  less  than  an  equally  numerous  body 
of  men.  Their  pay  consisted  of  rent,  that  is,  in 
holding  a  little  farm  without  paying  any  rent.  This 
rent  was  politically  made  up  of  two  parts,  one  of 
which,  the  land-tax,  belonged  to  Government ;  and 
the  other,  the  surplus  between  the  land-tax  and  the 
actual  rent,  to  the  landholder.  In  districts  which 
had  been  brought  directly  under  Mussulman  control, 
where  the  so-called  landholder  ^^*  was  merely  the 
tax-gatherer,  the  legal  surplus  amounted  to  only 
ten  per  cent. ;  but  in  districts  that  had  maintained 
or  acquired  a  semi-independence,  where  the  land- 
holder was  a  real  seigneur  paying  only  a  tribute 
like  the  Rajahs  of  Beerbhoom  and  Bishenpore,  the 
surplus  greatly  exceeded  the  nominal  land-tax.  It 
was  in  this  latter  class  of  districts  that  the  village 
watch  chiefly  flourished  ;  and  Lord  Cornwallis  very 
wisely,  as  it  seemed  then,  continued  a  force  to 
whose  support  Government  contributed  in  so  small 
degree.^^'^  The  landholders  retained  the  right  of 
appointing  them,  but  they  were  subjected  to  a 
certain  slight  supervision  by  the  regular  police,  and 
hence  indirectly  by  the  English  head  of  the  district. 
From  the  year  1792  these  two  classes  of  police 

^^*  Zamindar. 

135  Moreover,  the  order  of  the  13th  October  1790  rendered  the 
legality  of  increasing  the  permanently  fixed  land-tax  by  annexing  the 
village-police-lands  doubtful ;  the  inexpediency  of  so  doing  it  ren- 
dered certain.  As  to  the  law,  cf.  Decision  of  the  Privy  Council  in 
re  Joykissen  Mookcrjee  7'.  the  Collector  of  East  Burdwan. 


THE   VILLAGE   WATCH.  ill 

have  existed  side  by  side  in  Bengal  :  a  regular  force 
founded  on  the  old  Thana  establishments,  and  paid 
in  money,  and  an  irregular  force,  the  representatives 
of  the  old  village  watch,  supported  by  small  grants 
of  rent-free  land.  Each  has  its  defects,  but  the 
imperfections  of  the  first  class  are  accidental,  and 
easily  susceptible  of  remedy.  The  defects  of  the 
second  are  inherent  in  the  system,  and  can  be  got 
rid  of  only  by  changing  the  system  itself  In  the 
first  place,  the  village  watch  is  now  most  unequally 
distributed.  Railways  and  roads  have  diverted 
industry  and  population  from  their  ancient  centres 
into  new  channels,  while  the  police  have  remained 
immoveable  ;  so  that  an  old  deserted  village  is  some- 
times pestered  with  three  or  four  watchmen,  while 
a  new  and  crowded  mart  has  not  a  single  one.  In 
the  second  place,  the  village  watchman  is  the  ser- 
vant of  two  masters  :  practically,  the  landholder  has 
the  use  of  him  during  the  day,  while  all  that  the 
magistrate  can  get  out  of  him  arc  a  few  sleepy 
rounds  at  night.  Third,  as  he  owes  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  landholder,  and  is  subject  to  his  direct 
control,  he  gives  just  such  information  to  the  magis- 
trate as  he  thinks  will  please  his  principal  master. 
Fourth,  the  magistrate  has  no  power  to  fine  hini 
departmentally.  If  he  sleeps  at  his  post  he  must 
be  cited  before  a  court,  witnesses  must  be  sum- 
moned from  great  distances,  a  public  prosecutor 
must  attend,  and  the  travesty  of  justice  ends  in  a 
shilling  fine.  Fifth,  nor  has  the  magistrate  any 
power   to   promote   or   reward,   no   superior  grades 


334  THE  ANNALS  0J<  RURAL  BENGAL. 

existing,  and  the  whole  force  being  in  fact  on  one 
dead  level  of  inefficiency.  Some  of  these  defects  in 
the  constitution  of  the  rural  police  result  from  im- 
provements in  other  branches  of  the  administration, 
and  the  national  prosperity  to  which  those  improve- 
ments have  given  rise.  Others  are  as  old  as  the 
system  itself.  We  find  the  magistrates  complain- 
ing in  1 791  that  they  could  not  punish  the  police 
departmentally,  and  that  every  village  watchman 
could  enjoy  the  dignity  without  running  any  of  the 
risks  of  a  State  trial. ^^^ 

The  sufferings  which  this  defective  system  of 
rural  police  has  inflicted  on  Bengal,  would  long  ago 
have  been  put  an  end  to  had  the  rural  records  been 
studied.  The  Indian  historian  finds  that  in  the 
ancient  Hindu  period  each  village  had  an  heredi- 
tary watchman  to  protect,  its  property  and  to  main- 
tain the  peace.  The  Indian  official  finds  a  police- 
man attached  to  a  village,  and  immediately  sets  him 
down  as  the  old  Hindu  watchman,  and  as  such 
hesitates  to  interfere  with  his  office.  But  the  re- 
cords prove  that  the  village  watchman  whom  the 
Mussulmans  bequeathed  to  us,  had  at  best  but  a 
faint  connection  with  the  primitive  ante-type,  and 
in  some  districts  no  connection  at  all.  He  was  not 
hereditary  ;  he  held  his  office  from,  and  was  amen- 
able to,  the  landholder,  not  to  the  village  community. 
His  duties  were  to  a  large  extent  fiscal,  and  as  an 
officer  of  criminal  justice  he  acted  under  the  direct 

136  Written  in  1855,  since  which  year  a  reform  has  been  proposed, 
but  whether  carried  out  I  am  at  present  unable  to  ascertain. 


ITS  DEFECTS.  335 

control  of  a  regular  establishment — the  Foujdari — 
with  the  Mussulman  magistrate  at  its  head.  Be- 
tween 1765  and  1790  the  Nawab,  who  still  retained 
the  criminal  administration  of  the  province,  per- 
mitted the  regular  Foujdari  establishment  to 
dwindle  away ;  and  the  Company,  having  in  its 
fiscal  capacity  the  control  of  the  village  watchmen, 
attempted  to  saddle  them  with  the  duties  of  a 
criminal  police.  These  attempts  signally  failed  ; 
but  the  village  watch  survives,  in  spite  of  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  of  bribery,  extortion,  and 
abetment  of  crime.  In  this  way  a  creature  of  Mus- 
sulman misgovernment  comes  down  to  us  protected 
liy  the  sanctions  which  are  very  properly  accorded 
to  the  ancient  Hindu  institutions  of  the  land. 

The  rural  police,  thus  bequeathed  to  us,  form  an 
enormous  ragged  army  who  eat  up  the  industry  of 
the  province.  In  Beerbhoom  alone  there  are  8976 
of  them,^"  besides  the  regular  constabulary  amount- 
ing  to  370,  making  a  total  of  9346  to  guard  a  popu- 
lation not  much,  if  at  all,  exceeding  one-third  of  a 
million. ^^^  London,  with  between  three  and  four 
inillions,  has,  according  to  the  newspapers,  only 
6500  police.  In  Beerbhoom,  therefore,  there  is 
one  policeman  to  every  thirty-seven  inhabitants  ;  in 
London,  one  policeman  to  between  five  and  six 
hundred  inhabitants.  In  London,  however,  the 
police   constitutes   a   Force,  properly  so   called ;  in 

^3^  Memorandum  furnished  by  the  District  Superintendent  of 
Police,  dated  26th  January  1866. 

13S  This  number  refers  only  to  the  Pohce  Jurisdiction  ;  the  popula- 
tion of  the  Civil  Jurisdiction  is  estimated  at  half  a  million. 


336  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

Bengal  the  village  watch  are  a  mere  mob,  wholly 
ignorant  of  the  esprit  de  corps,  strangers  to  pro- 
fessional pride  and  the  official  sense  of  honour 
which  that  pride  develops,  not  to  be  relied  upon 
in  any  emergency,  unwilling  to  exercise  such  detec- 
tive ability  as  they  possess,  the  plunderers  rather 
than  the  protectors  of  the  people,  and  oftener  the 
abettors  than  the  suppressors  of  crime. 

But  even  this  miserable  police  proved  incon- 
veniently efficient  in  those  days.  The  Nawab  had 
allowed  the  administration  of  criminal  justice  to  fall 
into  utter  disrepair,  and  the  watchman  sent  in  more 
prisoners  than  the  Courts  could  dispose  of.  More 
than  one  half  the  inmates  of  the  jail  were  suspected 
persons  waiting  *  to  be  sent  in  chains  to  the  Muham- 
madan  law  officer.'  In  some  districts  no  tribunal 
existed  to  try  them.  They  lay  in  stifling  dungeons 
until  a  sufficient  number  accumulated  to  make  it 
worth  while  forwarding  them  under  a  military 
escort  to  Moorshedabad.  The  infrequency  of 
arrests  indefinitely  lengthened  this  period  of  sus- 
pense ;  and  when  at  last  the  miserable  gang  set  forth, 
it  was  with  scarce  a  raof  to  cover  them  from  the 
torrents  of  the  rainy  season  or  the  chill  damps  of 
the  winter  night.  Staggering  under  their  chains, 
dropping  down  on  the  road  from  want  of  food,  their 
flesh  torn  by  jungle  briers,  and  streaming  from 
sword-pricks  inflicted  by  their  guards,  they  reached 
the  seat  of  justice  only  to  be  remanded  to  prison 
until  the  Mussulman  judge  found  leisure  and  inclina- 
tion to  take  up  their  case.      Even  the  day  of  trial 


MUSSULMAN  JAIL  DISCIPLINE.  337 

l)rought  no  decision  :  if  they  were  innocent,  the 
presiding  officer  had  to  be  bribed,  or  he  sent  them 
back  to  jail  to  take  the  chance  of  fresh  evidence 
turning  up  ;  if  they  were  guilty,  he  ordered  them 
to  prison,  but  often  without  mentioning  any  definite 
period.  Incredible  to  relate,  a  large  proportion  of 
the  felons  in  the  Beerbhoom  jail  were  thus  under 
sentence  '  to  remain  during  pleasure,' — a  legal  for- 
mula which,  translated  into  honest  English,  simply 
meant  until  the  creatures  of  the  court  had  squeezed 
the  unhappy  prisoners'  friends  to  the  uttermost 
farthing. 

The  Encrlish  head  of  the  district  was  charijed 
with  the  diet  and  safe  keeping  of  the  prisoners,  but 
here  his  responsibility  ended.  What  little  he  could 
do  to  mitifrate  their  sufferino^s  he  seems  to  hav^e 
done,  and  the  records  display  a  very  humane  super- 
vision on  the  part  of  the  Central  Government  on 
this  point.^'^''  The  ruinous  state  of  the  jail,  how- 
ever, led  to  cruel  precautions  against  escape ;  and 
Lord  Cornwallis,  when  he  took  up  the  question  of 
prison  reform,  found  the  practice  had  been  '  to  keep 
prisoners  in  stocks  or  fetters,  or  to  fasten  them 
down  with  bamboos,  or  to  shut  theni  up  in  cells 
or  close  apartments  at  night,' — a  proceeding  which 
in  a  tropical  climate  amounts  in  a  very  short 
time  to  sentence  of  death.  '  Not  on  account  of 
the   suit   or  charge    on    which    they   are    confined, 

'•'"'  E.  D.  with  regard  to  jail  returns,  Letter  from  the  Civil 
Auditor  to  the  Collector,  dated  25th  January  1791  ;  with  regard  to 
diet,  Letter  from  the  Accountant-General,  29th  Uecembcr  1790,  etc. 
li.  J.  R  and  H.  R.  R. 

VOL.   L  Y 


338  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

but  merely  because,  from  the  insecurity  of  the 
jails,  the  jailor  had  no  other  means  of  preventing 
their  escape.'^'*" 

It  was  not  till  1792  that  the  Company  really 
took  the  prison  discipline  of  Bengal  into  its  own 
hands,  and  the  measure  belongs  to  a  series  of  great 
reforms  on  which  this  volume  cannot  ^nter.  Nor 
does  it  fall  within  my  present  scope  to  describe  the 
tedious  and  uncertain  steps  by  which  an  effective 
system  of  civil  justice  was  in  the  following  year 
given  to  India.  It  is  enough  to  lay  before  the 
reader  the  actual  state  of  the  judicial  administration 
during  the  first  few  years  after  Beerbhoom  passed 
under  British  rule.  Those  who  have  formed  their 
idea  of  our  early  administration  from  the  enlightened 
efforts  of  Warren  Hastings  and  Sir  William  Jones 
towards  the  formation  of  Hindu  and  Mussulman 
codes,  will  be  somewhat  startled  when  placed  face 
to  face  with  its  practical  working. 

For  the  records  place  beyond  doubt  that  until 
1793,  civil  justice  was  unknown  in  Bengal.  The 
office  of  judge  formed  part  of  the  collector's  duties, 
and  the  least  part.  The  realization  of  the  revenue 
and  the  quelling  of  the  banditti  left  him  neither 
leisure  nor  inclination  for  hearing  disputes ;  and,  as 
Hastings  well  expressed  it,  every  one  set  up  as  a 
judge  who  had  the  power  to  enforce  his  own  decrees. 
A  very  few  statistics  with  regard  to  a  single  district — 
Beerbhoom — will  suffice.    At  that  period  the  united 

'••^  Letter  from  G.  A.  Barlow,  Esq.,  Sub-Secretary  to  the  Govern- 
ment, dated  Council  Chamber,  the  3d  February  1792.     B.  R,  R. 


CIVIL  JUSTICE,   1790  AND  1S64.  339 

district  was  three  times  its  present  size,  and  con- 
tained not  under  a  million  of  inhabitants."^  There 
was  then  a  single  judge  who  divided  his  attention 
among  six  offices,  each  of  which  he  deemed  more 
important  than  his  judicial  work.^^-^  The  united 
district  has  since  then  been  partitioned  into  three, 
in  a  single  one  of  which  nine  courts  are  con- 
stantly open  for  the  disposal  of  civil  suits,  besides 
four  others  which  have  jurisdiction  in  causes  con- 
nected with  rent  or  the  possession  of  land.'^^ 
Until  1793  the  Government  allowed  no  separate 
expenditure  for  civil  justice  within  the  district ; 
it  now  allows  more  than  seven  thousand  pounds 
a  year."*  The  total  number  of  suits  instituted 
between  1787,  when  Beerbhoom  passed  directly 
under  British  rule,  and  1793,  when  the  Corn 
wallis  Code  introduced  a  new  order  of  thiuLis, 
appears  to  have  been  one  hundred  and  twelve,  or, 
on  an  average,  eighteen  per  annum. "^  Last  year 
(1864)  upwards  of  four  thousand  civil  causes  were 
instituted,   besides    miscellaneous    orders    and  pcti- 

'■"  Mr.  Keating  estimated  the  population  of  Beerbhoom  at 
800,000,  and  of  Bishenpore  at  570,000  ;  but  he  admits  these  were 
more  guesses.  Letter  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  nth  August  1789. 
In  1801  it  was  conjectured  to  be  1,500,000. — Geography  of  Hindoostan, 
p.  29,  Calcutta  1838.     B.  R.  R.  etc. 

"-  No  cases  decided  by  the  Assistant-Magistrate  as  Registrar 
appear  in  the  Records  till  after  1793.    B,  J.  R,    Regulation  xiii.  of  1793. 

'*^  One  District  Judge,  one  Principal  Sadar  Amin,  one  Sadar 
Amin,  six  Moonsifs  ;  besides  one  Collector,  one  Assistant,  and  two 
Deputy-Collectors  for  the  disposal  of  rent  suits. 

^■"  Budget  Estimate  for  the  District  of  Beerbhoom,  1864-65. 
B.  R.  R. 

^^^  Return  furnished  to  me  by  the  Civil  Judge,  dated  5th  Decem- 
ber 1S65.     B.  J.  R. 


340  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

tions.  If  we  consider  the  innumerable  sources  of 
dispute  which  petite  culture,  with  its  minute  sub- 
division of  property  and  multiplicity  of  tenures, 
gives  rise  to,  each  peasant  having  his  own  little 
set  of  rights  to  maintain,  the  latter  number  is  by 
no  means  excessive,  and  the  former  number  tells  a 
sorrowful  story  of  complaints  unheard  and  wrongs 
unredressed.  It  tells  us  that,  under  our  first  at- 
tempts to  do  justice  to  the  people  of  India,  only 
one  man  in  sixty  thousand  annually  ventured  to 
make  use  of  our  courts.  Nor  was  this  distrust 
unfounded ;  for  of  the  hundred  and  twelve  hardy 
suitors  who  invoked  the  aid  of  the  courts  between 
1787  and  1792,  only  sixty-nine  had  been  able  to 
obtain  a  decree  at  the  end  of  the  last-named  year. 
On  the  other  hand,  while  4489  suits  were  instituted 
in  1864,  4482  were  disposed  of;"*'  and,  practically, 
judicial  arrears  are  now  unknown  in  Bengal. 

I  am  tempted  to  advert  for  a  moment  to  a 
charge  brought  against  the  native  character  by 
two  learned  historians  who  have  written  eloquently 
about  the  Bengali  without  any  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  rural  Bengal.  Mr.  Mill  and  Lord 
Macaulay  have  painted  the  Indian  husbandman 
as  a  very  litigious,  slippery  fellow ;  the  former 
gentleman  never  having  set  foot  on  Indian  soil, 
the  latter  with  such  materials  before  him  as  come 

^<^  Another  return,  dated  12th  December  1865.  These  numbers 
represent  the  whole  litigation  of  the  district,  respecting  both  real  and 
personal  property,  exclusive  of  suits  under  Act  x.  of  1859,  which,  for 
the  most  part,  arise  from  causes  peculiar  to  Bengal,  and  are  tried  by 
special  courts. 


INDIAN  II  TIG  A  TION  3  4 1 

in  the  way  of  a  Calcutta  official.^"  The  statistics 
of  rural  litigation  in  England  afford  no  ground  of 
comparison  ;  for  in  England  only  a  small  section 
of  the  community  has  any  rights  connected  with 
the  soil,  and  the  litiration  to  which  such  rights 
give  rise  are  proportionately  few.  In  Bengal,  on 
the  other  hand,  at  least  five-sixths  of  the  popula- 
tion have  some  connection  with  land,  and  are  liable 
to  the  disputes  which  naturally  spring  from  it.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  Buchanan  found  that 
in  the  district  of  Patna,  including  the  great  city  of 
that  name,  more  than  a  third  of  the  inhabitants 
were  *  gentry,'  i.e.  landed  proprietors,  and  that 
95,510  out  of  a  total  population  of  123,094  made 
their  living  entirely  by  the  land.  Throughout  the 
whole  province  of  Bahar  the  proportion  was  730,157 
out  of  829, 103,  inclusive  of  the  great  towns,  and  ex- 
clusive of  the  numbers  who  joined  husbandry  with 
trade  or  handicrafts.  The  deo^ree  of  interest  which 
the  various  classes  connected  with  the  land  have  in 
the  soil  varies;  but,  generally  speaking,  three-fourths 
of  the  population  have  sufficient  interest  in  it  as 
to  form  a  legitimate  source  of  differences  requiring 
judicial  adjustment.  In  addition  to  this  fecund 
source  of  not  unhealthy  litigation,  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  during  the  past  seventy-five  years 

"'^  The  laboured  accuracy  of  Mr.  Mill  as  to  facts  can  only  be 
appreciated  by  one  who  has  followed  his  footsteps  among  the  India 
Ofike  records  ;  and  Lord  Macaulay's  Indian  Essays — for  example, 
that  on  Warren  Hastings — contain  hints  that  he  must  have  derived 
from  the  Company's  most  secret  archives.  But  neither  of  these 
great  men  had  an  oppoilunity  of  studying  the  rural  population  of 
India. 


342  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

the  pent-up  litigation  of  several  centuries  has  found 
vent,  each  class  of  the  people  having  to  discover 
by  actual  experiment  what  are  its  rights  under  our 
Anglo-Indian  system  of  law. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  result  of  these  various 
stimulants  to  litigation.  The  number  of  regular 
suits  in  Beerbhoom  during  1864  amounted,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  4489.  The  population  of  the  civil 
jurisdiction  exceeded  half  a  million,"^  so  that  in 
round  numbers  there  is  one  suit  in  the  year  for 
1 20  inhabitants.  The  average  duration  of  life  is 
much  shorter  in  Bengal  than  in  England ;  probably 
nearer  to  thirty  than  to  forty  years.  Speaking  very 
generally,  therefore,  and  without  laying  undue  stress 
on  calculations  based  upon  imperfectly  ascertained 
data,  it  would  appear  that,  of  every  four  of  the 
rural  population,  three  pass  through  life  without  a 
civil  suit. 

If  we  turn  from  the  rural  to  the  general  popu- 
lation of  the  province,  the  proportion  of  litigants 
is  still  less.  The  population  is  about  thirty-five 
millions ;  the  total  number  of  civil  suits  instituted 
during  the  year  (1864)  was  134,393,"^  giving  a  suit 
to  every  260  inhabitants  ;  so  that,  assuming  the 
average  duration  of  existence  to  be  thirty-five  years, 
six  out  of  every  seven  of  the  Bengali  people  pass 
through  life  without  having  anything  to  do  with 
the  civil  courts. 

'^^^  514,597  in  1852.     Survey  Report,  p.  43. 

'<"  Annual  Report  of  the  Administration  of  the  Bengal  Presidency 
for  1865-66.  High  Court  (Orig.  Juris.),  1385;  Small  Cause  Courts, 
8o,go6  ;  other  Civil  Courts,  52,102. 


A  HEALTHY  FEATURE.  343 

But,  in  truth,  this  litigation  is  only  a  healthy 
and  most  encouraging  result  of  three-quarters  of  a 
century  of  conscientious  government.  While  those 
who  know  very  little  about  the  natives  of  India 
pronounce  them  litigious,  the  magistrates  who 
spend  their  lives  among  them  have  constantly 
complained  that  they  cannot  be  induced  to  seek 
the  assistance  of  the  authorities.  For  the  first  time 
in  their  history,  the  people  of  India  are  learning  to 
enforce  their  rights,  and  to  do  so  not  by  the  bands 
of  clubmen,  which  are  matters  of  memory  with 
many  rural  officers,  but  by  the  regular  process  of 
the  courts.  That  the  litigation  is  beneficial,  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that,  out  of  108,559  original 
suits,  77,979  were  decided  in  favour  of  the  plain- 
tiff,^^°  besides  the  vast  number  which  were  not 
prosecuted  to  judgment  in  consequence  of  the  de- 
fendant privately  yielding  the  claim  to  save  further 
expenses.  The  habitual  enforcement  of  civil  rights 
is  the  best  possible  training  for  the  temperate  use 
of  political  privileges ;  and  the  trust  which  the 
natives  of  India  have  learned  to  repose  in  our 
judicial  system,  contrasts  strongly  with  the  period 
— scarcely  seventy-five  years  ago  —  during  which 
only  one  in  every  sixty  thousand  inhabitants 
annually  ventured  to  ask  the  aid  of  the  courts, 
and  only  one  in  a  hundred  thousand  annually 
obtained  it. 

Turning  from  the  quantity  to  the:  ([uality  of  the 

'•'■"  Annual  Report  of  the  Administration  of  the  Bengal  Presidency, 
for  i.sri5-rA  p.  8.     (Statistics  for  1864.) 


344  'JJ^Ji  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

justice  then  administered,  a  still  more  painful  scene 
is  disclosed.  The  judges  called  for  or  dispensed 
with  evidence  according  to  the  leisure  they  had  for 
the  business,  postponed  proceedings  to  suit  their 
own  convenience,  and  frequently  forgot  to  take 
them  up  again.  Many  of  the  exhibits  bear  no 
official  signature  or  seal,  so  that  they  might  be 
abstracted  or  inserted  by  the  creatures  of  the  court 
at  pleasure.  When  a  case  was  put  off,  a  date  was  sel- 
dom fixed  for  callinof  it  acjain.  It  therefore  resolved 
itself  into  a  bribing  match  between  the  litigants, 
whether  the  record-keepers  should  remind  the  judge 
of  its  existence,  and  bring  it  on  for  further  hearing. 
In  this  contest  the  defendant— who,  as  Sir  Henry 
Strachey  showed,  was  the  wrong-doer  in  ninety- 
five  out  of  every  hundred  suits — generally  got  the 
better  ;  for,  disgraceful  to  relate,  the  order  of  post- 
ponement sine  die  forms  the  final  order  in  a  large 
proportion  of  cases.  Even  when  the  evidence  had 
been  heard,  the  judge  had  often  no  law  to  guide 
his  decision.  The  Regulations  were  irregularly 
passed,  irregularly  transmitted  to  the  courts  ;  and 
many  an  old  letter  from  the  Central  Government 
alludes  to  laws  which  the  provincial  authorities,  in 
reply,  blandly  regretted  they  could  not  find  in  their 
records.  If  the  sole  memorial  of  Lord  Cornwallis' 
reign  had  been  his  order  for  the  printing  and  effectual 
publication  of  the  Regulations,  he  would  have  ranked 
high  as  an  Indian  reformer  ;  and  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that,  before  his  time,  a  body  of  substantive 
law  did  not  exist  in  a  sinHe  district  court  through- 

o  o 


THE  HISTORY  OF  A  SUIT,   1772-91.  345 

out  Bengal.  This,  however,  did  not  do  so  much 
harm  as  mJght  be  supposed  ;  for  matters  were  as 
bad  as  they  could  be,  independently  of  the  absence 
of  law.  The  decision  practically  rested,  not  with 
the  judge,  but  with  a  venal  underling, — the  decree 
being  written  in  Persian,  a  language  which  not  one 
of  the  district  judges  could  read.  Indeed,  until  the 
year  1789,  I  have  been  unable  to  find  a  single 
decision  of  the  Beerbhoom  court  signed  or  sealed, 
or  even  initialled,  by  the  English  judge  or  his 
registrar. 

But  the  obtaining  of  the  decree  was  only  the 
beginning  of  sorrows.  During  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury every  five  years  had  seen  new  tribunals  erected, 
and  the  successful  suitor  was  dragged  from  one 
court  of  appeal  to  another,  till  either  he  or  his 
adversary  was  ruined.  It  became,  in  fact,  only 
a  question  as  to  which  of  the  two  could  hold  out 
longest,  as  the  history  of  a  single  case  will  prove. 
During  the  anarchy  whicli  preceded  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Company  to  the  fiscal  administration 
of  Bengal,  the  Rajah  of  Bishenpore  died,  leaving 
two  sons.  The  elder  seized  an  unfair  share  of  the 
inheritance  ;  and  as  no  justice,  either  good  or  bad, 
was  to  be  had  in  those  days,  the  younger  submitted. 
But  on  the  establishment  of  the  Company's  courts, 
the  younger  son  applied  to  them  for  redress  ;  and 
after  weary  years  of  litigation  and  unstinted  briber)-, 
obtained  a  decree.  The  elder  at  once  appealed  to 
the  council  at  Moorshedabad.  The  case  turned  on 
the   Hindu  doctrines  of  inheritance — doctrines  still 


346  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL.. 

intricate,  and  at  that  time  kept  secret  by  the  priests  ; 
and  the  judge  was  an  ingenuous  striphng  of  nine- 
teen/'^ with  whom  '  equity  and  good  conscience ' 
were  supposed  to  make  up  for  the  want  of  a  legal 
training  and  a  total  ignorance  of  the  law.  '  Will 
you  believe  it,'  wrote  Hastings,  '  that  the  boys  of 
the  service  are  the  sovereigns  of  the  country,  under 
the  unmeaning  title  of  supervisors,  collectors  of  the 
revenue,  administrators  of  justice,  and  rulers,  heavy 
rulers,  of  the  people  ?'  From  the  council  at  Moor- 
shedabad  the  case  was  transferred  to  the  Board  of 
Revenue  in  Calcutta,  where  a  new  set  of  parties 
had  to  be  bribed,  but  where  no  final  decision  could 
be  obtained.  A  triflingf  difference  about  sharino-  the 
inheritance  had  thus  been  fanned  by  long  litigation 
into  a  deadly  feud  ;  and  the  Rajah  of  Bishenpore, 
in  a  formal  petition  to  Government,  designates  his 
only  brother  as  '  the  enemy  of  my  life.'^"  From 
the  Board  of  Revenue  the  case  went  before  the 
Governor-General  in  Council,  who  decided  that  all 
the  previous  courts  had  been  in  the  wrong,  and  that 
the  brothers  were  joint  sharers  of  the  inheritance. 
But  before  this  decree  was  obtained,  one  brother 
was  a  white-haired  imbecile  prisoner  in  the  debtors' 
jail ;  the  other  lay  impervious  to  joy  or  sorrow  on 
his  deathbed.^^^ 

Even   when    the    Government   prosecuted,    the 
delays  were  interminable.      On   the    ist   December 

'^'  Life  of  Lord  Teignmouth,  p.  28. 

•^-  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  15th  October  1790.  B.  R.  R. 
'*•''  Acting  Collector  to  Board  of  Revenue,  dated  25th  December 
1791.     B.  R.  R. 


THE  COMPANY'S  FUNCTIONS,   1765-93.         347 

1 79 1,  the  assistant-collector  instituted  twelve  suits 
on  behalf  of  the  Company;  on  the  24th  July  1792, 
we  find  him  respectfully  representing  that  in  not 
one  of  them  had  a  day  been  yet  fixed  for  the 
preliminary  hearing/^* 

Such  were  our  first  attempts  at  the  rural  govern- 
ment of  Bengal.  They  do  not  make  a  pleasing 
picture  ;  but  this  book,  if  it  is  to  have  any  value 
at  all,  must  speak  the  truth.  Before  passing  any 
censure  on  those  early  English  administrators,  how- 
ever, it  is  right  to  understand  accurately  what  the 
Company  undertook  to  perform.  The  treaties  of 
1765  vested  it  with  the  collection  of  the  revenues, 
and  this  function  it  very  efficiently  and  conscien- 
tiously discharged.  Attached  to  the  collection  of 
the  revenue,  according  to  native  ideas,  was  the 
administration  of  civil  justice.  This  fact  the  Com- 
pany did  not  realize  till  1772  ;  and  notwithstanding 
the  leofislative  efforts  of  Warren  Hastinjjs,  no  reliable 
system  of  justice  reached  the  people  till  1793.  It 
must  be  confessed,  therefore,  that  we  failed  to  do 
our  duty  in  this  respect ;  but  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  we  found  no  civil  tribunals  in  the 
country,  the  ancient  judicial  machinery  having  dis- 
appeared during  the  anarchy  which  preceded  1765  ; 
and  that,  bad  as  our  first  courts  were,  they  were 
better  than  none.  With  the  third  function  of  in- 
ternal government — the   administration   of  criminal 

!''<  C.  Oklficld,  Esq.,  to  Collector,  dated  24th  July  1791.  Indian 
officials  will  think  this  delay  still  more  extraordinary  when  they  are 
informed  that  the  cases  were  resumption  suits.     B.  R.  R. 


348  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL^. 

justice,  and  the  police — the  Company  had  legally 
nothing  to  do.  This  department  remained  in  the 
hands  of  the  Nawab  until  1790,  and  practically  the 
English  collectors  interfered  only  when  crimes  of 
violence  reached  the  point  at  which  they  endangered 
the  revenue. 

But  the  administration  of  the  country  was, 
after  all,  only  a  secondary  and  subsidiary  business 
with  the  East  India  Company  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  period  of  which  I  treat ;  a  function  that 
had  been  forced  upon  it,  or  rather  which  it  had 
been  forced  for  the  sake  of  self-preservation  to 
undertake,  and  one  which  its  ablest  counsellors 
lonof  rerarded  as  a  source  of  weakness  rather  than 
of  Strength.  Until  Lord  Cornwallis  gave  a  nobler 
interpretation  to  its  duties,  commerce  and  money- 
making  continued  to  be  recognised  as  its  chief  end, 
conquest  and  government  only  as  two  important 
means.  Without  some  examination,  therefore,  of 
its  dealinsfs  and  influence  as  the  one  great  mercan- 
tile  power  in  the  land,  our  survey  of  rural  Bengal 
during  the  second  half  of  the  last  century  would  be 
incomplete. 


RURAL  MANUFACTURING  SYSTEM.  349 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE    COMPANY    AS    A    RURAL    MANUFACTURER. 

'TPHE  Records  disclose  the  mercantile  operations 
of  the  Company  in  full  play.  It  managed 
its  business  according"  to  two  distinct  systems  :  by 
covenanted  servants  who  received  regular  pay,  and 
invested  the  money  entrusted  to  them  without  mak- 
ing any  private  profit ;  and  by  unsalaried  agents, 
who  contracted  to  supply  goods  at  a  certain  rate, 
and  might  make  what  they  could  by  the  bargain. 
The  first  class  bore  the  titles  of  residents,  senior 
merchants,  junior  merchants,  factors,  and  sub-factors. 
Their  posts  formed  the  most  lucrative  in  the  Com- 
pany's gift,  and  attracted  its  best  men,  while  its 
political  functions  were  made  over,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  '  the  boys  of  the  service.'  Warren  Hast- 
incfs  himself — ^the  first  Anijlo- Indian  statesman  who 
appreciated  the  responsibilities  of  sovereign  power 
— did  not  venture  to  render  the  mercantile  subser- 
vient to  the  administrative  character  of  his  high 
office.  As  a  legislator  his  success  was  partial,  but 
as  the  chief  of  a  great  trading  corporation  which 
had  to  pay  an  annual  dividend,  it  was  complete  ;  and 


350  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

when  he  left  India,  the  conspicuous  monuments  of 
his  rule  appeared  to  be,  not  the  administrative 
reforms  which  have  given  him  a  permanent  place 
in  history,  but  the  weaving  villages,  filatures,  and 
factories  which  he  left  in  every  district  of  Bengal. 
The  influence  exercised  upon  the  people  by  these 
centres  of  rural  industry  has  escaped  the  historian  ; 
and  I  believe  the  present  chapter  will  exhibit  the 
Company's  trade  in  a  new  and  not  unsuggestive 
light. 

Long  before  the  Company  deemed  it  necessary 
to  assume  the  direct  administration  of  the  western 
principalities,  it  had  covered  them  with  trading  con- 
cerns ;  and  indeed  the  peril  into  which  the  rajahs' 
misrule  brought  the  factories,  formed  one  of  the 
main  reasons  that  induced  Lord  Cornwallis  to  take 
Beerbhoom  under  his  own  care.  A  commercial 
resident  supervised  the  whole,  and  three  head  fac- 
tories, in .  conveniently  central  positions,  regulated 
the  operations  of  twelve  other  subordinate  ones. 
Silk,  cotton  cloths,  fibres,  gums,  and  lac  dye,  fur- 
nished the  staple  articles  of  the  Beerbhoom  invest- 
ment. Mulberry -growing  communes  fringed  the 
margin  of  the  great  western  jungle,  and  every  bend 
of  the  Adji  on  the  south,  and  of  the  More  on  the 
north,  disclosed  a  weaving  village.  These  little 
industrial  colonies  dwelt  secure  amid  the  disorders 
of  the  times,  protected  not  by  walls  or  trained 
bands,  but  by  the  terror  of  the  Company's  name. 
They  afforded  an  asylum  for  the  peaceable  crafts- 
man when  the  open  country  was  overrun  ;  and  after 


INDUSTRIAL  SETTLEMENTS  FORMED.      351 

the  harvest  of  the  year  had  been  gathered  in,  the 
husbandman  transported  thither  the  crop,  with  his 
wife,  and  oxen,  and  brazen  vessels,  careless  of  what 
the  banditti  might  do  to  the  empty  shell  of  his  mud 
hovel.  Some  of  these  unfortified  stroneholds  erew 
into  important  towns  ;  and  as  one  set  of  names  tell 
of  a  time  when  the  country  seems  to  have  been 
divided  between  robbers  and  wild  beasts,  so  another, 
such  as  Tatti-parah  (weaving  village),  disclose  how 
the  artisans  and  small  merchants  found  protection 
by  clustering  together  under  the  Commercial  Resi- 
dent's wing. 

On  only  two  occasions  did  the  banditti  venture 
to  attack  either  the  Company's  workmen  or  their 
work.  The  first  happened  by  accident ;  the  second 
was  the  act  of  despair.  A  train  of  Government  pack- 
bullocks  fell  into  the  hands  of  robbers  while  passing 
through  the  jungle  ;  but  as  the  drivers  fled,  there 
was  no  one  to  say  to  whom  the  goods  belonged,  and 
they  were  plundered  accordingly.  The  Commer- 
cial Resident,  indignant  above  measure,  wrote  to 
the  collector.  The  latter  replied  in  an  apologetic 
strain,  and  the  landholder  on  whose  estate  the  mis- 
fortune happened  thought  himself  happy  in  being 
allowed  to  purchase  pardon  by  making  good  the 
loss.  Probably  the  robbers  themselves,  on  learning 
their  mistake,  had  surrendered  the  property,  for  the 
identical  missing  articles  were  recovered. 

The  other  occasion  proved  a  more  serious  one. 
Mr,  Keatinij;  had  hemmed  in  the  banditti  on  the 
south   of   the   Adji  ;    but    thinking   the   Compan)'s 


352  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

name  a  sufficient  protection,  had  taken  no  steps  to 
guard  the  weaving  villages  on  the  northern  bank. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances,  his  calculation  would 
no  doubt  have  proved  correct.  But  starving  men 
are  not  to  be  relied  upon  ;  so  one  morning  the 
marauders  crossed  the  river  and  sacked  the  Com- 
pany's principal  weaving  village.  An  outrage  so 
unprecedented  as  this  was  not  to  be  atoned  for  by 
apologies  on  the  part  of  the  collector,  or  by  com- 
pensation from  the  landholder.  About  the  same 
time  the  ancient  capital  of  the  district  had  been 
stormed,  its  palaces  despoiled,  and  property  a  hun- 
dred times  more  valuable  than  a  dozen  weaving 
villages  destroyed  or  plundered,  without  drawing 
forth  any  comment  from  the  Government.  But 
now  the  collector  humbled  himself  before  the  Com- 
mercial Resident  in  vain.  The  latter  laid  the 
matter  before  Lord  Cornwallis,  and  presently  a 
severe  censure  from  Government  taught  Mr.  Keat- 
ing that,  though  the  banditti  might  plunder  the  dis- 
trict at  pleasure,  the  Company's  work-people  must 
be  protected  at  any  cost. 

The  sum  spent  upon  the  mercantile  investment 
in  Beerbhoom  varied  from  ^^"45,000  to  ^^65,000  a 
year.^  The  weavers  worked  upon  advances.  Every 
head  of  a  family  in  a  Company's  village  had  an  ac- 
count at  the  factory,  where  he  attended  once  a  year 
for  the  purpose  of  seeing  his  account  made  up,  and 
the  value  of  the  goods  which  he  had  from  time  to 

^  These  sums  have  been  arrived  at  by  adding  up  the  commercial 
drafts  on  the  Treasury.     B.  R.  R. 


THE  COMMERCIAL  RESIDENT.  353 

time  delivered  set  off  against  the  sums  he  had  re- 
ceived. The  balance  was  then  struck,  a  new  ad- 
vance generally  given,  and  the  account  reopened 
for  the  ensuing  year. 

Mr.  Cheap,  the  Commercial  Resident,  appears 
throughout  in  the  light  of  a  very  important  per- 
sonao;e,  and  one  with  whom  Mr.  Keatinof,  althoueh 
not  naturally  of  a  conciliatory  turn  of  mind,  did  his 
best  to  keep  on  good  terms.  Of  longer  standing  in 
the  service  than  the  Collector,  and  less  liable  to  be 
transferred,  the  Commercial  Resident  formed  the 
real  head  of  the  district.  His  o-ains  were  unlimited  ; 
for  besides  his  official  pay,  he  carried  on  an  enor- 
mous business  on  his  own  account.  We  find  Mr. 
Keating  complaining  that  he  can  barely  subsist  on 
his  salary ;  that  the  mud  tenement  in  which  the  col- 
lectors lived  was  letting  in  water,  and  tumbling  down 
upon  his  head  ;  and  petitioning  in  vain  for  a  single 
rood  of  land  on  which  to  build  a  house.  Mr.  Cheap, 
on  the  other  hand,  not  only  made  a  fortune,  and 
bequeathed  the  largest  indigo  plantations  in  that  part 
of  Bengal,  but  meanwhile  lived  sumptuously  in  a 
pile  of  buildings  surrounded  by  artificial  lakes  and 
spacious  gardens,  and  defended  by  a  strong  wall 
which  gave  the  Commercial  Residency  a  look  less 
of  a  private  dwelling  than  of  a  fortified  city.  The 
ruins  crown  the  top  of  a  hill  visible  for  many  miles, 
and  cover  as  large  a  space  as  the  palaces,  pavilions, 
and  mausoleums  which  the  princes  of  Beerbhoom 
had  erected  during  two  hundred  years. 

The  Commercial  Resident,  rather  than  the  Col- 

VOL.   I.  Z 


354  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

lector,  wielded  the  power  of  the  public  purse.  Mr, 
Keating  possessed  patronage  only  to  the  amount  of 
;^3000  per  annum,  and  all  valuable  appointments  in 
his  gift  required  the  confirmation  of  the  Calcutta 
authorities.  But  Mr.  Cheap,  as  commercial  chief, 
had  from  ^^"45,000  to  ;^65,ooo  to  spend  each  year  on 
behalf  of  the  Company.  The  whole  industrial  classes 
were  in  his  pay,  and  in  his  person  Government  ap- 
peared in  its  most  benign  aspect.  On  the  Collector 
devolved  the  harsh  task  of  levying  the  taxes  ;  the 
Commercial  Resident  had  the  pleasant  duty  of  re- 
distributing them.  To  the  then  superstitious  Hindu, 
Mr.  Keating  was  the  Company  in  the  form  of  Siva, 
a  divinity  powerful  for  evil  and  to  be  propitiated 
accordingly  ;  while  Mr.  Cheap  was  the  Company  in 
the  form  of  Vishnu,  powerful  for  good,  less  vene- 
rated because  less  feared,  but  adored,  beloved, 
wheedled,  and  cheated  on  every  hand.  A  long  un- 
paid retinue  followed  him  from  one  factory  to 
another,  and  as  the  procession  defiled  through  the 
hamlets  mothers  held  aloft  their  children  to  catch  a 
sight  of  his  palanquin,  while  the  elders  bowed  low 
before  the  Providence  from  whom  they  derived  their 
daily  bread.  Happy  was  the  infant'  on  whom  his 
shadow  fell  !  For  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  he 
remained  in  his  palace  at  Soorool,  a  visible  type  of 
the  wealth,  magnificence,  and  permanence  of  the 
great  Company  ;  and  an  aged  man,  who  still  haunts 
the  neighbourhood,  tells  of  feasts  which  lasted  forty 
days  in  those  now  silent  and  crumbling  halls,  where 
his  father  served,  and  where  he  grew  up. 


AS  MAGISTRATE  AND  JUDGE.  355 

Mr.  Cheap  exercised  magisterial  powers,  and 
the  villagers,  to  whom  an  appearance  before  the 
Collector,  whether  as  plaintiff  or  defendant,  was 
equally  an  object  of  terror,  referred  their  disputes 
to  the  arbitration  of  the  Commercial  Resident. 
Little  parties  arrived  every  morning,  one  bearing 
a  wild  beast  and  expecting  the  reward,  another 
guarding  a  captured  freebooter,"  a  third  to  request 
protection  against  a  threatened  attack  on  their  vil- 
lage, a  fourth  to  procure  the  adjustment  of  some 
dispute  about  their  water-courses  or  landmarks.  In 
such  matters  the  law  gave  Mr.  Cheap  no  power ; 
but  in  the  absence  of  efficient  courts,  public  opinion 
had  accorded  jurisdiction  to  any  influential  person 
who  chose  to  assume  it,  and  the  Commercial  Resi- 
dent's decision  was  speedy,  inexpensive,  and  usually- 
just.  The  Residency  formed  a  bright  spot  in  dark 
places,  and  the  gratitude  of  the  district  continued 
judicial  authority  to  Mr.  Cheap  and  his  successors 
lonof  after  the  oriijinal  need  for  it  had  ceased. 
Every  landholder  in  Bengal  held  his  cutchcrry,  and 
occasionally  did  justice  between  his  tenants  ;  but 
Mr.  Cheap  was  the  justice-general  of  the  district, 
and  Government,  wisely  recognising  the  value 
of  such  popular  tribunals,  but  at  the  same  time 
perceiving  the  necessity  for  supervising  them, 
has  conferred  regular  magisterial  powers  on  the 
present    resident   partner    of  the    firm    which    Mr. 

*  On  one  occasion  the  Collector  had  to  indent  for  a  military  de- 
tachment, to  bring  in  to  headquarters  a  bandit  whom  the  Commer- 
cial Resident  had  arrested  by  his  unarmed  inlluencc. 


356  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

Cheap  founded  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  century 
ago. 

Besides  being  the  channel  for  investing  the 
Company's  money,  Mr.  Cheap  was  a  great  mer- 
chant and  manufacturer  on  his  own  account.  The 
privilege  of  private  trade  had  at  one  time  been 
cruelly  abused.  In  1762  it  drew  forth  a  bitter 
letter  from  Hastings.  Lord  Clive  denounced  it  in 
more  than  one  philippic,^  and  by  his  reforms  won 
for  himself  among  the  junior  writers  the  title  of 
'  Clive  of  infamous  memory.'*  Under  Vansittart's 
feeble  rule  it  all  but  suspended  the  government  of 
the  country.  The  Board  of  Directors  wrote  severely 
to  the  Governor-General  about  it  in  1773;  it  was 
animadverted  upon  in  Parliament  in  April  1782; 
and  as  late  as  1 789,  notwithstanding  repeated  pro- 
hibitions, Lord  Cornwallis  found  it  necessary  to 
interdict  judges  and  collectors  from  being  concerned 
in  mercantile  houses.^  One  branch  of  the  service, 
and  only  one,  had  been  excepted.  The  Commercial 
Residents,  having  nothing  to  do  with  the  administra- 
tion of  justice  or  the  collection  of  the  revenue,  had 
less  opportunity  of  turning  their  official  position 
into  a  source  of  extortion  or  corrupt  profits,  and  it 
was  held  that  public  servants  would  make  better 
men  of  business  if  they  had  a  little  of  their  own  to 

^  Speech  in  defence  of  himself  in  Parliament.  Letter  to  the  Court 
of  Directors,  dated  30th  February  1765.     Mill,  ii.  235,  236,  4to  ed. 

*  Letter  from  John  Shore,  dated  3d  December  1769  ;  Life,  i.  26. 

^  Letter  from  the  Governor-General  in  Council  to  the  District 
Judges,  dated  4th  March  1789.  Circular  Order  from  Board  of  Re- 
venue, dated  6th  IVLarch  1789.     B.  R.  R, 


AS  A  PRIVATE  SPECULATOR.  357 

look  after.  '  You  will  see,'  writes  John  Shore,  '  that 
we  have  continued  the  liberty  of  private  trade  to 
your  Commercial  Residents  and  agents.  Depend 
upon  it,  that  the  true  way  to  improve  your  affairs 
is  to  make  the  interests  of  individuals  and  of  the 
Company  go  hand  in  hand.'" 

With  regard  to  Mr.  Cheap's  private  enterprises 
the  records  are  silent.  He  introduced  the  cultiva- 
tion of  indigo  into  the  district,  improved  the  manu- 
facture of  sugar  by  means  of  apparatus  brought 
from  Europe,  and  established  a  house  which  still 
flourishes,  and  whose  brand  bears  his  initials  at  the 
present  hour.  Something  of  the  old  authority  of 
the  Commercial  Resident  yet  clings  to  the  firm. 
The  ill-feeling  between  landlord  and  tenant  that 
has  ruined  Eastern  Bengal  is  unknown  on  their 
estates,  and  an  order  from  the  resident  partner  has 
all  the  force  of  a  legislative  enactment  throughout 
the  valley  of  the  Adji. 

The  Company,  as  we  have  seen,  managed  its 
rural  manufactures  according  to  two  systems  :  by 
salaried  officers  like  the  Commercial  Resident,  and 
by  unpaid  agents  who  agreed  to  supply  the  invest- 
ment at  given  rates.  Of  the  latter  class  only  one 
specimen  existed  in  Beerbhoom.  Mr.  Frushard, 
a  Calcutta  merchant,  had  contracted  for  the  supply 
of  silk  in  Beerbhoom,  and  built  a  factory,  protected 
by  a  moat  and  ramparts,  on  the  banks  of  the  More. 
The    river   then   flowed    through    pathless  jungles, 

®  Letter  from  John  Shore  to  H.  Inghs,  Esq.,  dated  9lh  November 
1788. 


358  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

with  here  and  there  a  Httle  cleared  spot,  in  which 
the  mulberry-growing  communes  could  barely  hold 
their  own  against  the  wild  beasts.  But  the  high 
prices  which  the  Beerbhoom  silk  fetched  tempted 
them  to  brave  every  peril ;  and  as  soon  as  one 
hamlet  was  harried  by  the  banditti  or  trampled 
down  by  wild  elephants,  another  sprang  up.  The 
Empress  Nur  Jehan,  during  her  residence  with  her 
first  husband  in  the  adjoining  district,  having  taken 
a  fancy  for  the  Beerbhoom  fabrics,  aftervv'^ards  set 
the  fashion  for  them  at  the  imperial  court,  and  in 
India  a  fashion  lasts  for  a  few  centuries.  About 
the  year  1786,  therefore,  Mr.  Frushard  determined 
to  become  a  producer  of  Beerbhoom  silk  on  a  large 
scale ;  and  by  engaging  to  supply  the  Company, 
obtained,  through  its  influence,  from  the  rajah  a 
lease  of  the  jungle  lands  on  the  north  bank  of  the 
More. 

His  story  makes  us  feel  that  we  are  indeed 
livine  in  a  new  acre.  The  trials  and  difficulties 
which  constantly  beset  him,  with  the  political  neces- 
sities which  regulated  his  position,  are  scarcely 
intelligible  to  Anglo-Indians  of  the  present  day  ; 
and  even  the  class  to  which  he  belongs  has  been 
for  more  than  a  generation  extinct.  From  the 
day  that  '  the  adventurer'  set  foot  in  the  district, 
he  found  the  whole  officials  arrayed  against  him. 
The  natives  charged  him  the  highest  prices  for 
everything,  and  the  Company  allowed  him  the 
smallest.  A  sanguine,  irascible  man,  ignorant  of 
soils,    a    novice    in    dealing   with    the    agricultural 


'THE  adventurer;  MR.  FRUSHARD.       359 

classes,  but  full  of  energy,  and  firmly  believing  that 
a  fortune  was  to  be  made  in  a  few  years,  he  entered 
into  engagements  without  calculating  the  cost,  and 
lived  a  laborious  life  with  small  profit.  In  the  first 
place,  he  paid  a  great  deal  too  much  for  his  land. 
Jungle  tracts,  such  as  Mr.  Frushard's,  then  let  for 
IS.  6d.  an  acre ;  but  the  rajah  having  a  monopoly  of 
almost  the  whole  land  in  the  district,  managed  to 
obtain  6s.  6d.  from  the  eager  Englishman,  or  at  the 
rate  of  i6s.  for  the  land  really  capable  of  tillage. 
The  ordinary  rent  of  excellent  rice  land  then  varied 
from  7s.  to  i2s.^  Mr.  Frushard  therefore  speedily 
fell  into  arrears,  and  the  rajah  complained  to  the 
collector,  employing  Mr.  Frushard's  non-payment 
as  a  pretext  for  being  himself  behind  with  the  land- 
tax.  The  collector  found  himself  powerless  to  touch 
the  defaulter.  He  could  not  distrain  the  factory 
lands,  or  take  out  execution  against  its  stock-in- 
trade,  for  such  a  step  would  interfere  with  the 
regular  supply  of  the  silk  investment  ;  and  the 
presumption  of  doing  a  native  justice  at  the  ex- 
pense of  disarranging  the  mercantile  operations  of 
the  Company,  was  a  thing  unheard  of  in  those 
days.  Mr.  Keating,  furious  at  '  the  adventurer,'  but 
afraid  to  take  any  step  that  would  bring  down  upon 
his  own  head  the  wrath  of  the  Board  of  Trade, 
poured  forth  his  complaints  to  the  Board  of  Revenue. 
Me  stated  that,  while  the  factory  property  was  thus 

^  Old  Purgunnah  Ncrriks  and  papers  furnished  by  the  Court  of 
Wards'  Manager  of  the  Mctunipore  estates.  Also  Collcctorate  Ncr- 
riks.    B.  R.  R. 


36o  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

protected  from  attachment,  '  the  adventurer'  secured 
his  person  from  arrest  by  living  beyond  his  juris- 
diction, and  that,  in  short,  he  had  no  means  of 
reaching  '  that  pai-khast  ryot,  Mr.  Frushard.'  Nor 
was  the  latter  gentleman  less  clamant.  His  case 
even  reached  the  Court  of  Directors,  and  we  find 
Lord  Cornwallis  writing  of  him  as  one  that  deserves 
special  indulgence  in  1787.^  The  burden  of  all  his 
petitions  was,  that  the  Government  should  use  its 
influence  with  the  rajah  to  procure  a  remission  of 
his  rent ;  a  delicate  task  even  for  a  despotic  govern- 
ment to  undertake.  At  length,  in  1 790,  he  declares 
himself  wearied  out,  and  makes  one  final  appeal  for 
relief.  He  had  taken  the  land,  he  says,  at  an  ex- 
orbitant rent ;  to  this  rent  he  had  added  the  interest 
on  the  capital  by  which  he  had  brought  in  the  land 
from  jungle  ;  he  had  suffered  heavy  losses  from 
floods  ;  his  filature  had  been  at  work  during  four 
years,  but  it  had  not  begun  to  pay  ;  in  the  past 
year  (1789)  he  had  indeed  cleared  the  paltry  sum 
of  ^200  as  a  return  for  all  his  capital,  but  during 
the  current  year  (1790)  he  would  not  be  able  to 
make  both  ends  meet.  '  In  a  word,  although  for 
these  five  years  forbearing  from  any  place  of  public 
resort,  and  living  almost  in  retirement,  here  I  am, 
after  a  ten  years'  absence  from  home,  with  no  hope 
to  return,  and  with  barely  the  means  to  Hve.'^ 

It  was  only  those  who  drew  the  prizes  in  the 

^  Letter  from  the  Bengal  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors,  dated 
27th  July  1787,  para.  34.     I.  O.  R. 

3  Letter,  the  Honourable  Charles  Stuart,  P.  and  M.  B.  R.,  dated 
4th  June  1790.     B.  R.  R. 


HIS  DIFFICULTIES  AND  TRIALS.  361 

lottery  of  our  early  Indian  commerce  who  appeared 
before  the  EngHsh  pubHc.  But  no  idea  can  be 
further  from  the  truth  than  the  bcHef  that  to  go 
out  to  India  in  the  old  time  as  a  merchant  was 
synonymous  with  making  a  fortune.  Those  who 
drew  the  blanks  never  came  home  to  tell  the  tale. 
The  records  disclose  unsuccessful  speculators  like 
Mr.  Frushard  in  every  district  of  Bengal,  struggling 
on  against  usury,  sickness,  heat,  and  malaria,  rigidly 
excluded  from  the  society  of  their  official  country- 
men, and  unable  to  afford  those  necessary  luxuries 
which  alone  render  existence  in  India  tolerable  to 
a  native  of  the  temperate  zone. 

It  is  fair  to  state,  that  while  the  district  officers, 
and  especially  Mr.  Keating,  thwarted  the  unhappy 
Superintendent  of  Filatures  at  every  turn,  the  higher 
authorities  looked  upon  him  as  an  unavoidable  evil, 
and  rather  favoured  him  than  otherwise.  At  length, 
in  1 79 1,  Lord  Cornwallis,  fearing  to  lose  his  services 
altogether,  commanded  that  all  his  past  arrears 
should  be  forgiven  ;  that  for  the  future  his  rent 
should  be  reduced  by  nearly  a  half;  and  that  the 
collector  should  deduct  whatever  these  sums  came 
to  from  the  land-tax  payable  by  the  rajah.'''  For 
the  agency  system  had  been  found  to  yield  larger 
profits  to  the  Company  than  the  more  imposing 
operations  of  the  Commercial  Resident.  It  was 
conducted  partly  with  the  speculator's  private  capital, 
partly  with  money  advanced  by  the  Board  of  Trade. 

'*'  P'oi warded  with  the  Board  of  Revenue's  letter,  dated  iSth  July 
1791,  and  previous  correspondence.     B.  R.  R. 


362  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

The  Company  ran  no  risk.  If  the  season  proved 
a  bad  one  the  agent  suffered,  and  the  factory,  built 
at  his  expense,  afforded  a  material  guarantee  if  he 
failed  to  perform  his  contract. 

Mr.  Frushard,  being  thus  relieved  from  the 
exorbitant  rent  he  had  hastily  agreed  to,  became 
a  permanent  resident  in  Beerbhoom,  and  soon  a 
very  important  one.  A  pushing  Englishman,  with 
^15,000^^  a  year  to  spend  on  behalf  of  the  Com- 
pany, and  as  much  more  as  his  credit  could  supply 
on  his  own  account,  and  connected  with  the  Govern- 
ment in  a  degree  that  his  servants  were  likely  to 
exaggerate,  he  had  already  acquired  great  influence 
among  the  rude  jungle-communes.  The  collector's 
jurisdiction  practically  ended  on  the  south  side  of 
the  More.  All  beyond  was  forest  and  waste,  and 
its  scattered  inhabitants  had  to  protect  themselves 
as  best  they  could.  In  this  uncared-for  territory 
the  presence  of  an  energetic  mercantile  Englishman 
soon  made  itself  felt  in  spite  of  official  discourage- 
ment. He  became  their  magistrate  and  judge, 
arrested  robbers,  freed  many  a  village  from  tigers, 
and  drove  the  margin  of  cultivation  deep  into  the 
forest. 

All  this  was  as  wormwood  to  Mr.  Keating.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  a  non-official  Englishman  was 
a  dangerous  animal  in  a  district  :  he  had  conscien- 
tiously tried  to  prevent  Mr.  Frushard  rising  when 
he  was  down  ;  and  now  that  prosperity  had  dawned 

^1  This  sum  has  been  arrived  at  by  adding  up  the  treasury  drafts. 
B.  R.  R. 


BIS  ULTIMATE  TRIUMPH.  363 

on  him,  he  tried  to  render  him  as  uncomfortable 
as  possible.  The  records  prove  that  no  protection 
was  afforded  to  him  from  the  district  headquarters. 
The  Commercial  Resident  could  order  out  at  plea- 
sure a  detachment  of  soldiers  to  guard  his  weaving 
villages,  but  the  most  that  Mr,  Frushard  ventured 
to  ask  for  was  a  few  sepoys  to  convey  to  Soorie 
the  bandits  whom  he  had  captured  and  imprisoned 
in  his  factory. ^^  Moreover,  Mr.  Cheap's  office  com- 
pelled the  cultivators  to  sow  what  crops  he  wanted, 
and  he  thus  obtained  his  raw  materials  without  having 
to  buy  land  and  farm  it  himself.  Mr.  Frushard,  on 
the  other  hand,  had  to  grow  his  mulberry  bushes 
on  his  own  fields,  and  by  means  of  hired  labourers 
(nij-abad),  then  a  costly  and  troublesome  method. 

Mr.  Frushard's  assumption  of  judicial  powers 
formed  an  agreeably  permanent  source  of  recrimina- 
tion, maintained  with  equal  spirit  by  the  collector 
and  himself  The  Board  of  Revenue  failed  to  still 
the  clamour ;  the  Court  of  Circuit  found  itself 
equally  powerless  ;  and  the  feud,  which  a  little 
mutual  courtesy  might  have  turned  into  a  warm 
friendship,  at  length  went  up  for  decision  by  the 
Governor- General  himself  Mr.  Frushard  com- 
plained that  the  collector,  by  vexatious  arrests, 
dragged  off  his  head-men  '  at  the  most  critical  junc- 
ture of  the  year,'  and  rendered  it  impossible  for  him 
to  fulfil  the  Company's  contracts.''     The  collector 

''^  Military  Correspondence,  p.  24,  etc.     B.  R.  R. 
'2  Letter  to  the  Judges  of  the  Circuit  Court,  dated  17th  M.iy  1791, 
etc.     B.  R.  R. 


364  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

retaliated  by  charging  Mr.  Frushard  with  '  opposi- 
tion to  the  authority  of  his  court,'  and  with  turning 
his  factory  into  an  asylum  for  criminals  fleeing  from 
justice.  Thus  the  two  pass  away  from  the  records 
of  the  period  of  which  I  treat,  fighting  to  the  last ; 
no  unfit  types  of  the  English  adventurer  and  the 
average  official  of  those  days. 

I  am  tempted  to  diverge  for  a  moment  into  a 
description  of  the  character  and  legal  status  of  the 
early  English  settlers  in  Bengal.  The  materials 
which  have  accumulated  for  such  an  account  during 
four  years'  researches  in  the  records,  are  necessarily 
very  great.  But  I  have  steadily  endeavoured  to 
keep  in  mind  that  this  book  is  not  about  the  English 
in  India,  whether  official  or  non-official,  but  about 
the  natives.  It  must  suffice,  therefore,  to  state 
that  the  pioneers  of  independent  British  enterprise 
in  Bengal  were  of  two  kinds  :  '  interlopers,'  who 
came  out  in  spite  of  the  Company's  prohibition, 
and  trusted  to  their  connections,  or  to  bribery,  or 
to  appeals  ad  misericordiam,  for  a  sort  of  con- 
temptuous leave  to  remain  ;  and  *  adventurers,' 
men  of  education,  energy,  and  often  of  considerable 
capital,  who  had  obtained  the  sanction  of  the  Court 
of  Directors  before  starting  from  England.  Both 
classes  were  unwelcome  to  the  local  officers,  and 
for  two  good  reasons.  The  rural  courts  had  no 
jurisdiction  over  the  British-born  subject;  and  even 
when  the  latter  bound  himself  to  be  subject  to 
them,  as  all  '  adventurers'  had  to  do  before  leaving 
Calcutta,  it  was  found  that  practically  the  country 


LEGAL  STATUS  01^  '  THE  ADVENTURER:    365 

tribunals  were  powerless.  The  '  adventurer'  might 
secure  his  factory  from  attachment  by  taking  a 
contract  for  the  Company's  investment,  and  his 
person  from  arrest  by  living  out  of  the  district,  or 
in  Calcutta.  This  was  precisely  what  Mr.  Frushard 
did,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  the  rajah  once 
thought  of  reaching  him  by  means  of  the  costl)-, 
and  to  a  native  mysterious,  machinery  afforded  by 
the  Presidency  Courts.  The  second  ground  of 
objection  to  British  settlers  at  that  period  was  that 
somehow  Englishmen  require  and  exact  a  much 
higher  class  of  administration  than  satisfies  the 
natives  of  India,  or  than  the  Company  was  then 
willing  to  give.  Even  at  the  present  day,  the 
localities  in  which  the  English  element  chiefly 
abounds,  obtain  a  disproportionately  large  share  of 
the  talent  of  the  service  ;  and  many  a  collector 
who  has  administered  a  snuof  old-fashioned  Ben2:ali 
district  for  years,  without  attracting  either  praise  or 
blame,  publicly  breaks  down  if  called  upon  to  deal 
with  the  questions  to  which  English  energy  and 
English  capital  in  India  give  rise. 

This,  however,  furnishes  a  very  strong  reason 
why  English  settlers  should  now  be  welcome  in 
Bengal.  They  force  the  Government  to  do  its 
work  well,  and  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  that  from 
the  beofinnino;  the  effect  of  EnHish  commerce  has 
been  beneficial  to  the  people.  The  presence  of 
a  man  like  Mr.  Cheap  in  a  district  made  up  in  no 
small  decree  for  the  defects  of  the  regular  admini- 
stration,  and  the  necessity  of  protecting  his  com- 


366  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

merce  put  some  limit  to  the  gt:neral  insecurity  of 
property  that  then  prevailed.  Another  practical 
benefit  of  the  Company's  trade  was,  that  very  little 
of  the  revenue  went  out  of  the  district.  Under 
Mussulman  rule  the  whole  had  been  swept  off  to 
Moorshedabad  ;  under  the  Company,  nearly  two- 
thirds  were  returned  directly  to  the  local  circulation, 
in  purchase  of  the  staples  of  the  district.  In  due 
time  private  English  enterprise  stepped  into  the 
place  of  the  Company's  trade  ;  and  though  the 
surplus  revenue  now  goes  to  Calcutta  for  the  im- 
perial expenses,  planters  and  produce -merchants 
pour  an  unfailing  stream  of  capital  into  rural 
Bengal. 

The  benefits  which  Mr.  Cheap  conferred  upon  a 
large  scale,  Mr.  Frushard  repeated  on  a  smaller  one. 
He  spread  a  ring  of  cultivation  and  prosperity  round 
his  factory,  and  soon  founded  little  tributary  filatures 
throughout  the  whole  north-eastern  jungle  of  Beer- 
bhoom.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  very  typical 
Englishman-^too  sanguine  to  be  prudent  at  first, 
and  too  insular  to  sympathize  with  native  ways,  but 
eventually  settling  down  into  an  experienced  English 
planter,  with  that  rough,  paternal  liking  which  almost 
every  Englishman  in  a  Bengal  district  sooner  or 
later  gets  for  the  simple  people  among  whom  he 
lives.  His  factory,  rebuilt  several  times,  now  forms 
the  most  imposing  mercantile  edifice  in  Beerbhoom. 
It  is  charmingly  situated  on  a  rising  ground  on  the 
bank  of  the  More,  defended  from  the  river  by  colossal 
buttresses,  and  surrounded  by  a  high  and  many-angled 


ENGLISH  ENTERPRISE,  1789  AND  1S66.      367 

wall,   enclosing  a   space    large   enough   for   a   little 
town.     The  remnant  of  its  ancient  library  still  bears 
witness  to  a  fair  degree  of  mental  culture  on  the 
part  of  its  ancient  possessors,  particularly  an  cditio 
princcps  of  Gibbon,  six  noble  quartos,  over  whose 
pages,  let  us  hope,  the  isolated  '  adventurer'  often 
forgot   his    squabbles    with    the    collector   and    the 
floods    that    threatened    his    mulberry    fields.      His 
successors  now  employ  two  thousand  four  hundred 
artisans  for  the  single  process  of  winding  off  the 
cocoons  ;  and  if  to  these  be  added  the  unnumbered 
multitudes    of    mulberry  -  growers    and    silkworm- 
breeders,  with  their  families,   it  may  be  calculated 
that   the   factory   gives   bread    to    fifteen    thousand 
persons.      Its   annual   outlay  averages   .{^72,000,   or 
nearly  half  as  much  again  as  the  whole  investment 
of  the  Commercial   Resident  in  bygone  days,   and 
the  yearly  value  of  the  general  silk  manufactures  of 
the  district  exceeds  ;^  160,000  sterling.^^     It  must  be 
remembered  that  this  is  only  one  of  man)-  staples. 
Besides   Mr.    Frushard's  successors  on   the    More, 
there  are  Mr.  Cheap's  successors  on  the  Adji,  with 
smaller  factories  scattered  up  and  down  ;  and  be- 
sides silk,  the  district  produces  indigo,  lac-dye,  iron, 
fibres,  and  oil-seeds  to  an  enormous  value,  not  to 
speak  of  the  large  annual  exportation  of  grain, — a 
branch  of  its  commerce  which  still  remains  in  native 
hands.      It  is  this  influx  of  English  capital  that  has 
chiefly  given  empl())'ment  to  the  increased  inhabit- 

i""  Answers  to  questions  furnished  to  me  by  the  resident  partner 
of  the  firm.     A  cultivator  hves  well  on  ^8  a  year. 


368  TJJE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

ants,  whom  long-continued  security  to  person  and 
property  has  developed.  Rural  Bengal  has  ceased  to 
depend  for  its  subsistence  entirely  on  the  land  ;  and 
so,  although  the  quantity  of  land  stands  still,  the 
population  may  with  safety  multiply.  Nor  is  It  too 
much  to  say,  that  Independent  British  enterprise, 
once  so  hated  and  suspected  by  the  Company's  ser- 
vants, has  now  rendered  it  possible  to  give  good 
government  to  India,  without  intensifying  the 
struggle  for  life. 

In  formlnof  an  estimate  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  Company  discharged  Its  functions,  therefore.  It 
Is  necessary  to  keep  In  mind  what  it  understood 
these  functions  to  be.  Until  1790,  Its  avowed  prin- 
cipal business  was  commerce,  and  this  It  accom- 
plished excellently  well.  Its  secondary  business  was 
the  collection  of  the  revenue.  In  order  to  yield  a 
fund  with  which  to  trade  ;  and  in  this,  too,  it  dis- 
played great  energy  and  skill.  Its  third  duty 
was  the  administration  of  justice  ;  but  seven  years 
(1765-72)  elapsed  before  it  realized  that  this  per- 
tained to  it  at  all,  and  during  twenty-one  years  more 
(1772-93)  its  rural  courts  failed  to  bring  justice 
home  to  the  people.  For  the  state  of  the  criminal 
administration  and  the  police  it  was  not  responsible, 
either  according  to  treaty  or  in  fact,  until  1 790. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  GOVERNMENT  369 


CHAPTER    VII. 


CONCLUSION. 


T  HAVE  now  examined  the  surface  of  rural  society 
in  Bengal  during  the  second  half  of  the  last 
century,  and  here  the  present  volume  must  end. 
The  picture  will  probably  be  displeasing  to  that 
large  hero-worshipping  section  of  my  countrymen 
who  have  learned  to  believe  that  two  great  men — 
Clive  and  Hastings — suddenly  transformed  the 
Company  from  a  trading  association  into  a  sove- 
reign power.  Clive  did  indeed  win  for  the  Com- 
pany that  power ;  but  neither  he  nor  his  masters 
knew  what  he  had  won.  Warren  Hastings  disclosed 
a  deeper  sense  of  the  responsibilities  of  empire. 
He  perceived  that  in  government  two  elements 
have  to  be  considered  :  the  governed  as  well  as 
the  governors ;  and  the  first  years  of  his  rule  are, 
from  a  legislative  point  of  view,  the  most  brilliant 
episode  in  the  history  of  the  English  in  India.  But 
Hastings  had  not  the  power  to  carry  out  what 
he  devised,  and  the  India  Office  records  of  that 
period  are  a  narrative  of  good  intentions  rather  than 
of  actual  reforms — an  Utopia  which,  while  full  of 
ideas  that  their  author  never  was  able  to  give 
effect  to,  fails  to  show  what  he  really  accomplished. 
VOL.  I.  2  A 


370  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

Yet  these  records  form  the  sole  materials  from 
which  Indian  history  has  hitherto  been  written. 
Clive  and  Warren  Hastings  both  accomplished 
great  things  with  small  means.  But  the  dispropor- 
tion between  the  means  and  the  end  was  infinitely 
greater  in  the  case  of  Hastings  than  in  that  of  Clive  ; 
for  many  generals  have  vanquished  great  armies 
with  little  ones,  but  Warren  Hastings  alone,  in  the 
history  of  conquerors,  set  about  honestly  governing 
thirty  millions  of  people  by  means  of  a  few  mer- 
cantile clerks. 

In  Lord  Cornwallis  centred  that  happy  union 
of  great  qualities  with  the  good  gifts  of  fortune 
necessary  for  an  English  statesman  of  the  highest 
class.  His  rank  enabled  him  to  demand  his  own 
terms  from  the  Company ;  and  he  turned  a  deaf  ear 
to  all  overtures,  until  it  consented  to  entrust  him 
with  local  sovereign  powers  according  to  law,  as 
well  as  in  fact.  Had  Warren  Hastings  possessed 
these  powers,  the  reforms  of  1790-93  would  have 
been  ante-dated  twenty  years.  But  in  addition  to 
his  greater  freedom  from  control,  Lord  Cornwallis 
found  an  able  school  of  Indian  statesmen  whom 
Hastings  had  laboriously  trained  up,  only  to  be 
parted  from  when  they  reached  their  prime, — a 
school  represented  by  Rous  in  England  and  by 
Shore  in  Beno-al.  Into  the  brilliant  future  which  then 
dawned  for  India  I  am  not  permitted  to  enter;  nor 
am  I  careful  to  answer  those  who  think  it  unfair  to 
delineate  the  old  dark  days,  without  giving  so  much 
as  a  glimpse  at  the  bright  period  which  succeeded. 


RIGHTS  STILL   UNASCERTAINED.  371 

I  have  depicted  the  state  of  rural  Bengal  when  it 
passed  into  our  hands  ;  and  most  educated  English- 
men know  sufficient  of  its  present  condition  to  have 
some  perception  of  the  difference.  At  a  future 
period  it  may  be  my  delightful  duty  to  fill  in  the 
details  of  the  contrast  ;  but  meanwhile,  to  any  one 
who  questions  the  benefits  of  British  rule,  espe- 
cially if  he  be  a  native  of  India,  I  can  only  say.  Si 
7nommtentuni  qucsris,  circumspice. 

For,  meanwhile,  the  Indian  annalist  has  a  much 
more  urgent  work  in  hand  than  to  sound  the  praises 
of  the  English  governors.  The  rights  of  the 
governed  are  still  unascertained.  We  are  con- 
scientiously striving  to  rule  according  to  native 
usages  and  tenures ;  but  no  one  can  pronounce  with 
certainty  as  to  what  these  usages  and  tenures  are. 
As  late  as  1859  the  whole  land-law  of  Bengal  under- 
went revision,  important  changes  being  given  effect 
to,  that  plunged  the  province  into  a  paroxysm  of 
litigation.  In  1865,  after  the  new  system  had  been 
at  work  for  five  years,  the  fifteen  judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court  met  together  definitively  to  interpret 
its  provisions  ;  and  in  order  to  do  so,  they  found 
themselves  compelled  to  enter  into  questions  of 
the  most  recondite  history.  Several  of  their  judg- 
ments were  antiquarian  discussions  rather  than 
declarations  of  the  written  law  ;  and  however  sound 
and  beneficial  their  decision  has  proved,  antiquarian 
researches,  when  they  travel  out  of  the  statute  book 
into  the  domain  of  unascertained  history,  form  a 
very  dangerous  ground   for  judges   to  enter  upon. 


372  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

It  is  a  work  which  ought  to  be  done  to  their 
hands. 

Several  able  men  have  already  endeavoured  to 
perform  this  task.  One  class  has  hoped  to  discover 
the  rights  of  the  people  in  the  ancient  Hindu  code. 
But  the  doctrines  of  Manu  or  Yajnavalkya  bear 
about  the  same  relation  to  the  present  land-law  of 
Bengal,  that  the  Codex  Theodosianus  does  to  the 
present  land-law  of  Turkey.  Another  class  arguing 
from  the  fact  that  Bengal,  although  Hindu  at  bottom, 
had  long  been  subjected  to  Mussulman  rule,  has 
sought  for  an  elucidation  of  its  tenures  in  the 
writings  of  Arabian  jurists.  But  these  excellent 
scholars  forget  that  the  Muhammadan  conquest  of 
Lower  Bengal  was  never  perfectly  accomplished ; 
that  many  of  its  princes  were  tributaries  rather 
than  subjects ;  and  that  the  Kuran,  the  Hidaya,  or 
even  such  works  as  the  Fatwa  Alamgiri,  had  small 
effect  except  within  the  radius  of  Mussulman  supre- 
macy. The  real  land-law  of  the  country  is  to  be  found 
in  those  researches  which  were  conducted  by  the 
rural  officers  during  the  first  half-century  of  our  rule. 

In  the  next  volume,  therefore,  I  propose  to 
inquire  into  the  rights  and  legal  status,  as  disclosed 
in  the  rural  records,  of  the  various  classes  who 
owned  or  cultivated  the  soil.  An  important  source 
of  evidence  is  the  history  of  the  great  houses  whom 
we  found  in  possession  of  the  land.  The  investiga- 
tion involves  a  survey,  not  of  the  archives  of  a  few 
families  or  districts,  but  of  all  the  districts,  and  of 
as  many  as   possible  of  the  great  families   in   the 


MULTIPLICITY  OF  RIGHTS.  373 

province.  Curiously  enough,  the  latter  formidable 
task  has  recently  been  undertaken  by  several  of  the 
leading  native  gentlemen  in  Bengal,  independently 
of  my  researches,  and  it  will  shortly  become  pos- 
sible to  arrive  at  a  definite  solution  of  Indian  tenures 
and  usages.  My  own  investigations  point  to  an 
infinite  gradation  in  the  rights  of  the  various  classes 
interested  in  the  land.  In  some  districts  the  land- 
holder was  almost  independent  of  the  Mussulman 
Viceroy,  and  seldom  or  never  subjected  to  his  inter- 
ference ;  in  others  he  was  only  a  bailiff  appointed 
to  receive  the  rents.  In  some  districts,  again, 
peasant  rights  were  acknowledged,  and  the  old 
communal  system  survived  as  a  distinct  influence ; 
in  others  the  cultivators  were  mere  serfs,  and  one 
of  the  principal  duties  of  the  rural  police  was  to 
prevent  them  absconding  from  their  villages.  This 
is  the  secret  of  the  contradictory  objections  which 
were  urged  against  Lord  Cornwallis'  interpretation 
of  the  land-law.  At  that  time,  as  one  of  the 
Company's  servants  declared  in  the  Calcittta  Gazette, 
the  people's  rights  were  so  little  established,  '  that 
the  inquiries  of  the  ablest  men  have  not  ascer- 
tained them  ;'^  and  another  authority  states  that  no 
two  men  in  the  service  took  the  same  view  of  them, 
It  fell  out,  therefore,  that  those  collectors  who  had 
to  deal  with  districts  in  which  the  landholders  were 
the  real  owners  of  the  soil,  complained  that  the 
Permanent  Settlement  had  stripped  them  of  their 
rights  and  ruined  them;  while  those  who  had  derived 

*  Calcutta  Gazette,  dated  3d  June  179a 


374  THE  ANNALS  OF  RURAL  BENGAL. 

their  experience  from  parts  of  the  country  in  which 
the  Mussulman  system  had  uprooted  the  ancient 
houses,  objected  that  Lord  CornwalHs  had  sacrificed 
the  claims  of  the  Government  and  the  rights  of  the 
people  to  elevate  a  parcel  of  tax-gatherers  and  land- 
stewards  into  a  sham  gentry. 

With  a  view  to  ascertaining  what  analogy  may 
be  derived  from  the  Muhammadan  land  tenures  in 
Europe,  I  availed  myself  of  one  of  those  periods 
of  ill-health  incident  to  an  Indian  career  to  visit 
Turkey  and  the  Danubian  provinces.  I  found  the 
same  uncertainty  with  regard  to  the  land  tenures 
prevailing  throughout  the  Ottoman  dependencies 
as  in  Bengal.  In  neither  Europe  nor  India  have 
the  Mussulmans  succeeded  in  introducing  a  uniform 
system,  or  in  evolving  a  homogeneous  nation.  The 
only  explanation,  with  any  pretensions  to  compre- 
hensiveness, that  I  obtained  was  from  Photyaris 
Bey,  the  Ottoman  Minister  in  Greece,  one  of  that 
little  knot  of  enliorhtened  statesmen  in  whom  the 
future  of  Turkey  is  bound  up.  But  even  the  acute 
Phanariot's  account  did  not  tally  with  the  actual 
state  of  things  in  the  remote  provinces.  According 
to  a  Wallachian  nobleman,  the  plamin  doimniiim 
centred  in  the  great  landholders  ;  according  to  a 
Bulgarian  peasant,  the  cultivator  was  the  pivot  on 
which  the  rural  system  turns  ;  according  to  the 
officials  in  the  large  towns  and  the  Constantinople 
press,  the  Government  is  all  in  all. 

In  this  volume   I    have  endeavoured  to  exhibit 
the   ethnical  elements  of  the   Bengali   people,  and 


CONCLUSION.  375 

their  condition  when  they  passed  under  British  rule. 
The  praise  or  blame  of  the  English  Government 
forms  no  part  of  my  scheme,  and  indeed  I  am 
thankful  that  the  administrator  who  fic^ures  most 
in  my  narrative,  Mr.  Keating,  was  one  of  those 
ordinary  men  who  excite  neither  indignation  nor 
admiration.  He  did  his  appointed  work,  and 
received  for  it  his  appointed  pay,  but  he  was 
altogether  incapable  of  giving  that  interpretation 
to  his  duties,  which  can  invest  with  dignity  and 
pathos  the  long  hot  years  of  Indian  official  life.  I 
am  afraid,  however,  that  I  may  have  dealt  hardly 
with  our  predecessors  the  Mussulmans  ;  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  I  am  speaking  of  them  in  their 
last  days  of  decrepitude  and  enervation.  Of  the 
ancient  native  houses,  the  true  leaders  of  the  people,. 
I  have  yet  to  speak  ;  and  any  one  who  judges  of 
them  from  that  dark  period  to  which  this  volume 
has  been  confined,  will  do  them  the  same  injustice 
that  is  done  to  the  population  at  large  by  those  who 
mistake  Lord  Macaulay's  graphic  description  of 
the  Bengali,  as  he  emerged  abject  from  Mussulman 
oppression,  for  a  delineation  of  the  normal  and  per- 
manent character  of  the  Hindus. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX   A. 


BENGAL  IN  1772,  PORTRAYED  BY  WARREN 
HASTINGS. 

To  the  Hon'ble  the  Court  of  Directors  for  Affairs  of  the 
Hon'ble  the  United  Company  of  Merchants  of 
England  trading  to  the  East  Indies.  Dated  Fort- 
William,  the  3d  November  1772. 

Revenue  Dcpartmeiit. 

Hon'dle  Sirs, — In  our  address  by  the  Colebrooke,  dated 
the  13th  April  last,  we  aci^uainted  you  with  the  state  of  your 
revenues  in  Bengal  to  that  period,  since  which  we  have  closed 
the  account  of  the  neat  settlements  and  collections  for  the  last 
Bengal  year,  a  copy  of  which  we  now  transmit  a  number  {sic)  in 
this  packet.  From  it  you  will  please  to  observe  that  the  total 
receipts,  including  some  deductions  written  off  to  profit  and  loss 
in  the  Moorshedabad  treasury,  amounted  for  last  year  to  sicca 
rupees  1,57,26,576:  to:  2:  i  ;  so  that  the  Ballances '  for  that 
year  are  now  reduced  to  Rs.  12,40,812  :  7  :  15,  a  great  part  of 
which  we  shall  hope  to  realise  ;  and  we  flatter  ourselves  that  this 
reduction  of  the  Ballances,  and  the  comparative  view  we  hope 
you  will  take  of  the  Bengal  collections  for  these  several  years 
past,  with  those  of  the  last  year,  will  fully  satisfy  you  as  to  the 
favourable  Success  we  have  met  with  in  collection  of  the  revenues. 
The  Moorshedabad  books,  that  will  be  transmitted  to  you  by  the 
next  ship  complcatly  ballanced,  will  further  elucidate  the  state- 
ment of  the  last  year's  revenue,  which  we  have  now  the  honou* 
of  enclosing. 

At  a  meeting  of  your  Council  of  the  30th  August,  it  was 
unanimously  resolved  to  adopt  the  plan  proposed  by  our  Presi- 
dent and  members  of  the  Committee  of  Circuit  at  Cossimbazaar, 

*  This  letter  is  prinlcfl  exactly  as  it  is  spelt  in  the  original. 


.^So  BENGAL  IN  \i^2,  PORTRAYED      [Appx.  A. 

for  removing  the  Seat  of  the  Revenue  Business  to  the  Presidency, 
and  for  putting  this  important  Branch  of  your  affairs  under  the 
immediate  management  of  your  Governor  and  Council  ;  in  con- 
sequence of  which  we  formed  ourselves  into  a  Board  of  Revenue 
the  13th  ultimo.  Since  that  time  all  affairs  respecting  the  Col- 
lections or  internal  Government  of  the  Provinces  have  been  con- 
fined solely  to  this  department,  and  we  shall  henceforth  address 
)0u  separately  upon  all  matters  which  come  under  these  Heads. 

In  order  to  give  you  a  distinct  Idea  of  this  subject,  and  to 
make  it  the  more  complete,  we  shall  begin  by  recapitulating  the 
most  important  measures  that  have  been  lately  taken,  and  in 
which  you  have  been  in  part  advised  in  our  former  Letters. 

In  one  letter  by  the  Nottingham,  you  were  informed  of  our 
intention  of  letting  the  lands  throughout  the  provinces  in  farm, 
upon  long  and  well-regulated  Leases  ;  and  we  are  happy  to  reflect 
that  such  a  material  and  principal  mode  of  conducting  the  Collec- 
tions, should  coincide  so  entirely  with  your  sentiments  and  orders 
on  the  subject.  After  the  most  serious  and  mature  deliberation 
on  this  point,  we  determined,  in  our  proceedings  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  Revenue  of  the  14th  May,  to  establish  a  plan  for 
settling  the  several  districts  upon  this  footing,  and  for  the  future 
government  of  your  Collections.  This  being  the  Constitutional 
Ground- Work  of  all  our  subsequent  measures,  and  of  the  system 
which  we  have  since  attempted  to  build  upon  it,  we  have  thought 
it  necessary,  for  your  immediate  attention,  to  transmit  a  copy 
of  it  as  a  Number  in  the  Packet,  with  our  reasons  at  large  for 
adopting  the  Regulations  therein  laid  dowoi. 

Before  we  proceed  further  upon  this  subject,  it  may  not  be 
improper  to  premise  some  general  Remarks  on  the  State  of  the 
Province  at  this  Juncture. 

The  effects  of  the  dreadful  Famine  which  visited  these  Pro- 
vinces in  the  Year  1770,  and  raged  during  the  whole  course  of 
that  Year,  have  been  regularly  made  known  to  you  by  our  former 
advices,  and  to  the  public  by  laboured  descriptions,  in  which 
every  Circumstance  of  Fact,  and  every  Art  of  Languages,  have 
been  accumulated  to  raise  Compassion,  and  to  excite  Indignation 
against  your  Servants,  whose  unhappy  lot  it  was  to  be  the  wit- 
nesses and  spectators  of  the  sufferings  of  their  fellow-creatures. 
But  its  influence  on  the  Revenue  has  been  yet  unnoticed,  and 
even  unfelt,  but  by  those  from  whom  it  is  collected  ;  for,  not- 


Appx.  A.]  BY  WARREN  HASTINGS.  381 

withstanding  the  loss  of  at  least  one-third  of  the  Inhabitants  of 
the  Province,  and  the  consequent  decrease  of  the  Cultivation,  the 
nett  collections  of  the  year  1771  exceeded  even  those  of  1768,  as 
will  appear  from  the  following  Abstract  of  Accounts  of  the  Board 
of  Revenue  at  Moorshedabad  for  the  four  last  years  : — 

Bengal  Year. 

1 1 75  [1768-69].— Net  Collections,  .        .        ,         1,52,54,856:9:4:3 

1176  [1769-70]. — The  year  of  dearth,  which  was  pro-  1 

ductive  of  the  Famine   in  the  >  1,31,49,148  :6  :  3  :  2 
following  year,     .         .         .       ) 

1177  [1770-71].— The  year  of  the  Famine  and  Mor- )  . 

^  -^  tality j  1,40,06,030:7:3:2 

1178  [1771-72],  .         .         .       1,57,26,576:10:    2:1 

Deduct  the  amount  of  de- 
ficiencies occasioned  in  the 
Revenue  by  unavoidable 
losses  to  Government,       .  3,92,915  :  11  :  12 


1,53-33,660:14:9:2 


It  was  naturally  to  be  expected  that  the  diminution  of  the 
Revenue  shou'd  have  kept  an  equal  pace  with  the  other  Conse- 
quences of  so  great  a  Calamity.  That  it  did  not,  was  owing  to 
its  being  violently  kept  up  to  its  former  Standard.  To  ascertain 
all  the  means  by  which  this  was  effected  will  not  be  easy.  It  is 
difficult  to  trace  the  Progress  of  the  Collections  through  all  its 
Intricate  Channels,  or  even  to  comprehend  all  the  Articles 
which  compose  the  Revenue  in  its  first  operations.  One  Tax, 
however,  we  will  endeavour  to  describe,  as  it  may  serve  to 
account  for  the  Equality  which  has  been  preserved  in  the  past 
Collections,  and  to  which  it  has  principally  contributed.  It  is 
called  Najay,  and  it  is  an  Assessment  upon  the  actual  inhabit- 
ants of  every  Inferior  Description  of  the  Lands,  to  make  up  for 
the  Loss  sustained  in  the  Rents  of  their  neighbours  who  are 
either  dead  or  have  fled  the  Country.  This  Tax,  though  equally 
impolitic  in  its  Institution  and  oppressive  in  the  mode  of  exact- 
ing it,  was  authorised  by  the  antient  and  general  usage  of  the 
Country.  It  had  not  the  sanction  of  Government,  but  took 
place  as  a  matter  of  course.  In  ordinary  cases,  and  while  the 
Lands  were  in  a  state  of  cultivation,  it  was  scarcely  felt,  and 
never  or  rarely  complained  of.  However  irreronciliable  to  strict 
Justice,  it  afforded  a  preparation  to  the  State  for  occasional  De- 
ficiencies;  it  was  a  kind  of  Security  against  Desertion,  by  making 


382  BENGAL  /TV  1772,   PORTRAYED      [Appx.  A. 

the  Inhabitants  thus  mutually  responsible  for  each  other;   and 
precluded   the   inferior   Collector  from   availing  himself  of  the 
Pretext  of  waste  or  Deserted  Lands  to  withhold  any  part  of  his 
Collections.     But  the  same  Practice  which  at  another  Time  and 
under  different  Circumstances  would  have  been  beneficial,  be- 
came at  this  period  an  insupportable  Burthen  upon  the  Inhabit- 
ants.    The  Tax  not  being  levied  by  any  Fixed  Rate  or  Standard, 
fell  heaviest  upon  the  wretched  Survivors  of  those  Villages  which 
had  suffered  the  greatest  Depopulation,  and  were  of  course  the 
most  entitled  to  the  Lenity  of  Government.    It  had  also  the  addi- 
tional Evil  attending  it,  in  common  with  every  other  Variation 
from  the  regular  Practice,  that  it  afforded  an  opportunity  to  the 
Farmers  and  Shicdars  to  levy  other  Contributions  on  the  People 
under  color  of  it,  and  even  to  encrease  this  to  whatever  magni- 
tude they  pleased,  since  they  were  in  course  the  Judges  of  the 
Loss  sustained,  and  of  the  Proportion  which  the  Inhabitants  were 
to  pay  to  replace  it. 
J         Complaints  against  this  Grievance  were  universal  throughout 
i  the  Province,  and  it  was  to  be  feared  that  the  continuance  of  it 
,  would  be  so  great  a  check  to  the  Industry  of  the  People,  as  to 
J  impoverish  the  Revenue  in  the  last  Degree,  when  their  former 
1  savings  by  which  it  was  supported  were  gone. 

Though  7  Years  had  elapsed  since  the  Company  became 
possessed  of  the  Dewanny,  yet  no  regular  Process  had  ever  been 
formed  for  conducting  the  Business  of  the  Revenue.  Every 
Zemindaree  and  every  Taluk  was  left  to  its  own  peculiar  Cus- 
toms. These  indeed  were  not  inviolably  adhered  to.  The 
Novelty  of  the  Business  to  those  who  were  appointed  to  super- 
intend it,  the  chicanery  of  the  people  whom  they  were  obliged 
to  employ  as  their  agents,  the  accidental  Exigencies  of  each 
District,  and,  not  unfrequently,  the  just  Discernment  of  the 
Collector,  occasioned  many  changes.  Every  change  added  to 
the  confusion  which  involved  the  whole,  and  few  were  either 
authorised  or  known  by  the  presiding  Members  of  the  Govern- 
ment. The  Articles  which  composed  the  Revenue — the  Form 
of  keeping  Accounts,  the  Computation  of  time,  even  the  Techni- 
cal Terms,  which  ever  form  the  greatest  part  of  the  obscurity  of 
every  science — differed  as  much  as  the  soil  and  productions  of 
the  Province.  This  Confusion  had  its  origin  in  the  Nature  of 
the  Former  Government.     The  Nazims  exacted  what  they  could 


Appx.  A.]  BY  WARREN  HASTINGS.  383 

from  the  Zemindars ;  and  great  Farmers  of  the  Revenue,  wlioni 
they  left  at  Liberty  to  plunder  all  below  theni,  reserving  to  them- 
selves the  prerogative  of  plundering  them  in  their  Turn,  when 
they  were  supposed  to  have  enriched  themselves  with  the  spoils 
of  the  Country.  The  Muttisiddees  who  stood  between  the 
Nazim  and  the  Zemindars,  or  between  them  and  the  People, 
had  each  their  respective  shares  of  the  Public  Wealth.  These 
Profits  were  considered  as  illegal  Embezzlements,  and  therefore 
were  taken  with  every  Precaution  that  cou'd  ensure  secrecy ; 
and  being,  consequently,  fixed  by  no  Rate,  depended  on  the 
Temper,  Abilities,  or  Power  of  each  Individual  for  the  Amount. 
It  therefore  became  a  duty  in  every  man  to  take  the  most 
effectual  measures  to  conceal  the  Value  of  his  Property,  and 
elude  every  Inquiry  into  his  Conduct,  while  the  Zemindars  and 
other  Landholders  who  had  the  Advantage  of  long  Possession, 
availed  themselves  of  it  by  complex  Divisions  of  the  Lands  and 
intricate  modes  of  Collection  to  perplex  the  Officers  of  the 
Government,  and  confine  the  knowledge  of  the  Rents  to  them- 
selves. It  will  easily  be  imagined  that  much  of  the  Current 
Wealth  stopped  in  its  way  to  the  public  Treasury.  It  is  rather 
Foreign  from  the  purpose  of  this  Exposition,  but  too  apposite 
not  to  be  remarked  that  it  was  fortunate  such  a  system  did  pre- 
vail, since  the  Embezzlements  which  it  covered  preserved  the 
Current  Specie  of  the  Country,  and  returned  it  into  Circulation, 
while  a  great  part  of  the  Wealth  received  by  the  Government 
was  expended  in  the  Country,  and  but  a  small  superfluity  re- 
mained for  remittances  to  the  Court  of  Dclhee,  where  it  was  lost 
for  ever  to  this  province. 

To  the  original  Defects  inherent  in  the  Constitution  of  these 
Provinces,  were  added  the  unequal  and  unsettled  Government  of 
them,  since  they  became  our  property.  A  part  of  the  Lands 
which  were  before  in  our  possession,  such  as  Burdwan,  Midna- 
pore,  and  Chittagong,  continued  subject  to  the  authority  of  the 
Chiefs,  who  were  immediately  accountable  to  the  Presidency. 
The  24  Pergunnahs,  granted  by  the  Treaty  of  Plassey  to  the 
Company,  were  theirs  on  a  different  Tenure,  being  their  im- 
mediate property  by  the  Exclusion  of  the  Zemindars,  or  hereditary 
Proprietors  :  their  rents  were  received  by  Agents  appointed  to 
each  Pergunnah,  and  remitted  to  the  Collector,  who  resided  in 
Calcutta. 


384  BENGAL  IN  1772,  PORTRAYED      [Appx.  A. 

The  Rest  of  the  Province  was  for  some  time  entrusted  to  the 
joint-charge  of  the  Naib  Dwan  and  Resident  of  the  Durbar,  and 
afterwards  to  the  Council  of  Revenue  at  Moorshedabad,  and  to 
the  Supervisors  who  were  accountable  to  that  Council.  The 
administration  itself  was  totally  excluded  from  a  concern  in  this 
Branch  of  the  Revenue. 

The  internal  arrangement  of  each  District  varied  no  less  than 
that  of  the  whole  Province.  The  Lands  subject  to  the  same 
Collector,  and  intermixed  with  each  other,  were  some  held  by 
Farm,  some  superintended  by  Shicdars,  or  Agents  on  the  part  of 
the  Collector,  and  some  left  to  the  Zemindars  and  Talucdars 
themselves,  under  various  degrees  of  Controul.  The  First  were 
racked  without  mercy,  because  the  Leases  were  but  of  a  Year's 
standing,  and  the  Farmer  had  no  Interest  or  Check  to  restrain 
him  from  exacting  more  than  the  Land  could  bear.  The  Second 
were  equally  drained,  and  the  Rents  embezzled,  as  it  was  not 
possible  for  the  Collector,  with  the  greatest  degree  of  attention 
on  his  part,  to  detect  or  prevent  it.  The  latter,  it  may  be  sup- 
posed, were  not  exempted  from  the  general  corruption.  If  they 
were,  the  other  Lands  which  lay  near  them  would  suffer  by  the 
migration  of  their  inhabitants,  who  wou'd  naturally  seek  Refuge 
from  oppression  in  a  milder  and  more  equitable  Government, 

The  Administration  of  Justice  has  so  intimate  a  connection 
with  the  Revenue,  that  we  cannot  omit  the  mention  of  it,  while 
we  are  treating  of  this  subject  in  a  general  view,  although  we 
have  already  given  our  sentiments  upon  it  at  large  in  another 
place,  to  which  we  shall  crave  Leave  to  refer.  The  Security  of 
private  properity  is  the  greatest  Encouragement  to  Industry,  on 
which  the  wealth  of  every  State  depends.  The  Limitation  of  the 
Powers  annexed  to  the  Magistracy,  the  Suppression  of  every 
Usurpation  of  them  by  private  authority,  and  the  Facilitating  of 
the  access  to  Justice,  were  the  only  means  by  which  such  a 
Security  cou'd  be  obtained.  But  this  was  impossible  under  the 
circumstances  which  had  hitherto  prevailed.  While  the  Nizamut 
and  the  Dewannee  were  in  different  Hands,  and  all  the  Rights 
of  the  Former  were  admitted,  the  Courts  of  Justice  w^hich  were 
the  sole  Province  of  the  Nazim,  though  constituted  for  the 
general  Relief  of  the  Subjects,  cou'd  receive  the  Reformation. 
The  Court  and  Officers  of  the  Nizamut  were  continued,  but  their 
Efficacy  was  destroyed  by  the  Ruling  Influence  of  the  Dewannee. 


Appx.  a.]  £  V  WAR  REN  HASTINGS.  385 

The  regular  Course  of  Justice  was  everywhere  suspended ;  but 
every  man  exercised  it  who  had  the  Power  of  compelling  others 
to  submit  to  his  Dicisions.  The  People  were  oppressed ;  they 
were  discouraged,  and  disabled  from  improving  the  Culture  of 
their  Lands ;  and  in  proportion  as  they  had  the  demands  of 
Individuals  to  gratify,  they  were  prevented  from  discharging 
what  was  legally  due  to  Government. 

Such  was  the  State  of  the  Revenue,  when  your  Commands 
were  received  by  the  Lapwing,  and  happily  removed  the  difficulties 
which  had  hitherto  opposed  the  Introduction  of  a  more  perfect 
System,  by  abolishing  the  Office  of  Naib  Dwan,  and  authorising 
your  administration  to  assume  openly  the  Management  of  the 
Dewannee  in  your  Name,  without  any  Foreign  Intervention. 

In  the  Execution  of  these  your  Intentions,  the  points  which 
claimed  our  principal  attention,  as  will  appear  from  the  above 
Description,  were  to  render  the  Accounts  of  the  Revenue  simple 
and  intelligible,  to  establish  Fixed  Rates  for  the  Collections,  to 
make  the  Mode  of  them  uniform  in  all  parts  of  the  Province, 
and  to  provide  for  an  equal  administration  of  Justice.  In  the 
steps  which  we  have  already  taken,  we  have  laboured  to  obtain 
these  ends ;  with  what  Success  will  be  seen  hereafter. 

The  Regulations  which  we  have  before  mentioned  being  com- 
pleated,  and  the  Committee  of  Circuit  appointed,  consisting  (as 
we  mentioned  in  our  last)  of  the  Governor,  Messrs.  Middleton, 
Dacres,  Lawrell,  and  Graham.  We  published  our  Intention  of 
Farming  all  the  Lands  of  the  Province  of  Bengal,  on  Leases  of 
Five  Years,  and  invited  all  Persons  to  make  Proposals. 

The  Committee  first  proceeded  to  Kishennaggur,  and  there 
entered  on  the  Settlement  of  the  District  of  Nuddea.'  The  Pro- 
posals which  were  delivered  to  them  were  expressed  in  so  vague 
and  uncertain  a  manner,  and  differed  so  widely  from  each  other 
in  Form,  that  it  was  impossible  to  make  a  comparison,  or  to 
ascertain  the  Proportional  Amount  of  each  ;  and  the  few  only 
that  were  intelligible,  contained  very  low  and  disadvantageous 
Terms.  The  Committee  were  therefore  of  opinion  that  these 
Offers  shou'd  be  rejected,  and  that  the  Lands  shou'd  be  put  uj) 
at  Public  Auction,  tho'  contrary  to  the  original  Intention. 

To  remove  all  obstacles  that  might  present  themselves,  from 
an  uncertainty  in  the  Bidders  with  respect  to  the  more  Minute 
'  Proceedings  of  the  16th  and  28tli  June  1772. 

VOL.   I.  2    li 


386  BENGAL  IN  1772,  PORTRAYED      [Appx.  A. 

Articles  of  the  Collections,  and  the  Grounds  on  which  the 
Settlement  was  to  be  established  between  the  Farmer  and 
Cultivator,  the  Committee  found  it  indispensably  necessary 
before  the  Sale  began,  to  form  an  entire  new  Hustabood,  or 
Explanation  of  the  diverse  and  complex  articles  which  were  to 
compose  the  Collections.  These  consisted  of  the  Assail  or 
Original  Ground  Rent,  and  a  variety  of  Taxes  called  Aboabs, 
which  had  been  indiscriminately  levied  at  different  periods  by  the 
Government,  the  Zemindars,  Farmers,  and  even  by  the  inferior 
Collectors.  One  of  these  Aboabs  we  have  explained  above; 
many  of  them  are  incapable  of  any  Explanation. 

After  the  Committee  had  made  a  through  Investigation  of 
the  above  articles  of  the  Revenue,  they  proposed  to  deduct  such 
as  appeared  most  oppressive  to  the  Inhabitants,  or  of  a  late 
Establishment,  at  the  same  time  reserving  those  which  were  of 
long  standing,  and  had  been  chearfuUy  {sic)  submitted  to  by  the 
Ryotts,  these  being  in  fact  a  considerable  part  of  the  Neat  Rents. 
Among  the  former  were  the  Duties  arbitrarily  levied  by  the 
Zemindars  and  Farmers  upon  all  Goods  and  Necessaries  of  Life 
passing  by  water  thro'  the  interior  part  of  the  country.  The 
Bazee  Jumma,  or  Fines  for  petty  crimes  and  misdemeanours, 
were  also,  agreably  to  the  humane  and  equitable  spirit  of  your 
Orders,  totally  abolished,  as  well  as  the  Haldarry,  or  .Tax  upon 
Marriage,  which  yielded  a  trifling  Revenue  to  the  Government, 
was  very  injurious  to  the  State,  and  could  tend  only  to  the  dis- 
couragement and  decrease  of  Population, — an  object  at  all  times 
of  general  Importance,  but  more  especially  at  this  Period,  from 
the  great  Loss  of  Inhabitants  which  the  country  has  sustained  by 
the  late  Famine,  and  the  mortality  which  attended  it.  These 
several  Deductions  in  favour  of  the  Natives,  altho'  the  imme- 
diate cause  of  decreasing  the  Rent  Roll,  will  doubtless  in  time  be 
productive  of  the  most  salutary  effects,  as  they  tend  to  encourage 
the  Manufactures  and  Trade  of  the  country,  to  retrieve  the  loss 
of  Inhabitants,  to  free  the  People  from  vexatious  prosecutions, 
and  by  promoting  the  general  Ease  of  the  country,  virtually  to 
support  and  improve  its  Revenue. 

In  order  to  secure  the  Inhabitants  in  the  quiet  Possession  of 
the  lands  whilst  they  held  them  on  terms  of  cultivation,  and  to 
prevent  such  Exactions  as  aforementioned  in  future,  the  Com- 
mittee formed  new  Amulnamas  or  Leases,  in  which  the  claims 


Appx.  A.]  BY  WARREN  HASTINGS.  387 

upon  the  Ryotts  were  precisely  and  distinctly  ascertained,  and 
the  Farmers  restricted  from  making  any  further  Demands,  under 
the  severest  Penalties.  To  this  end,  and  to  prevent  the  Farmers 
from  eluding  this  restriction,  they  were  ordered  to  grant  new 
Pottahs,  or  Deeds,  to  the  Ryotts,  the  Form  of  which  was  drawn 
out  by  the  Committee  and  made  public,  specifying  the  conditions 
on  which  they  were  to  hold  their  Land,  the  separate  Heads  or 
Articles  of  the  Rents  ;  and  every  encouragement  was  contained  in 
them  to  cultivate  the  waste  ground  on  a  moderate  and  increasing 
Rent. 

Another  principal  Object  with  the  Committee  was  to  reduce 
the  Charges  of  Collection  as  low  as  possible,  from  a  conviction 
that  the  retrenchment  of  improper  and  unnecessary  Expences 
opens  a  source  of  Increase  of  Revenue  the  most  eligible,  because 
the  most  consistent  with  the  ease  of  the  Inhabitants.  For  this 
purpose  We  have  formed  an  uniform  and  regular  Establishment, 
for  all  the  necessary  Charges  to  be  incurred  in  the  Cutcherries  of 
the  several  Districts,  under  positive  Restrictions  that  they  shall 
not  be  exceeded  without  our  being  previously  advised.  This, 
We  doubt  not,  will  prove  a  great  saving  to  the  Hon'ble  Com- 
pany, as  it  will  be  the  effectual  means  of  preventing  in  future  all 
superfluous  and  unnecessary  Disbursements.  And  We  think  We 
may  venture  to  promise  that  this  Article  will  be  duly  attended 
to,  as  it  will  be  almost  the  only  Care  of  the  Auditor  to  prevent 
every  Deviation  from  it,  in  the  Accounts  which  are  to  pass  his 
Inspection. 

After  these  previous  steps  were  resolved  on,  the  Lands  of 
Kishenagur  were  put  up  to  Public  Auction,  and  a  Final  Settle- 
ment was  made  for  Five  Years,  on  an  accumulating  Increase,  for 
the  Particulars  of  which  we  must  beg  leave  to  refer  you  to  the 
proceedings  of  the  Committee,  which  are  now  transmitted. 

During  the  course  of  the  sale  at  Kishennagur,  the  Rajah  of 
that  place  gave  in  proposals  for  farming  the  whole  District, 
which  leads  us  to  the  following  general  observations  on  the 
Subject  of  Zemindars  and  Talookdars  in  the  Province  of  Bengal. 
Where  it  can  be  done  with  propriety,  the  entrusting  the  Col- 
lections of  the  Districts  to  the  Hereditary  Zemindars  wou'd  be  a 
measure  we  shou'd  be  very  willing  to  adopt,  as  we  believe  that 
the  People  would  be  treated  with  more  tenderness,  the  Rents 
more  improved,  and  the  Cultivation  more  likely  to  be  encouraged, 


388  BENGAL  IN  1772,  PORTRAYED      [Appx.  A. 

the  Zemindar  less  liable  to  failure  or  deficiencies  than  the 
Farmer,  from  the  perpetual  Interest  which  the  former  hath  in 
the  Country,  and  because  his  Inheritance  cannot  be  removed, 
and  it  would  be  improbable  he  would  risk  the  loss  of  it  by  eloping 
from  his  District,  which  is  too  frequently  practised  by  a  Farmer 
when  he  is  hard  pressed  for  the  Payment  of  his  Ballances,  and  is 
frequently  predetermined  when  he  receives  his  Farm. 

With  respect  to  the  Talookdarrys  and  inconsiderable  Zemin- 
darrys,  which  formed  a  part  of  the  Huzzoor  Zilahs  or  Districts 
which  paid  their  rents  immediately  to  the  General  Cutcherry 
at  Moorshedabad,  as  well  as  many  others  of  the  same  kind  in 
different  parts  of  Bengal ;  all  Arguments  have  been  weighed, 
whether  in  favour  of  the  just  Claim  Government  has  upon  their 
Lands  for  a  Revenue  adequate  to  their  real  Value,  or  of  the 
Zemindars  and  Talookdars  in  support  of  their  Rights  and  Prive- 
ledges,  grounded  upon  the  Possession  of  Regular  Grants,  a  long 
series  of  family  Succession,  and  fair  purchase.  These  being  duly 
considered,  there  occurred  to  us  only  the  two  following  Modes 
which  could  be  pursued  in  making  their  settlement.  The  First 
was  to  lett  {sic)  the  Lands  to  Farm ;  to  put  the  Renters  in  entire 
Possession  and  Authority  over  them,  obliging  them  to  pay  each 
Zemindar  or  Talookdar  a  certain  allowance  or  percentage  for  the 
subsistence  of  himself  and  family.  The  Second  was  to  settle 
with  the  Zemindars  themselves  on  the  footing  of  Farmers,  obliging 
them  first  to  enter  into  all  the  Conditions  of  a  farmer's  Lease  ; 
Secondly,  to  pay  the  same  Revenue  that  could  be  expected  from 
Farmers  ;  Thirdly,  to  give  responsible  securities ;  and  Fourthly, 
to  admit  a  reserve  in  favour  of  Government  for  making,  during 
the  course  of  their  actual  Lease,  an  exact  Hustabood  (Valuation 
from  Accounts),  or  a  Measurement  of  their  Possessions,  in  order 
to  ascertain  their  true  Value  at  a  future  settlement,  shou'd  the 
present  Accounts  be  found  to  be  fallacious,  or  concealments 
suspected.  We  have  allowed  a  degree  of  weight  to  the  argu- 
ments of  the  Zemindars  and  Talookdars  in  favour  of  their  plea 
of  Right,  which,  by  adopting  the  first  mode  of  settlement,  wou'd 
doubtless  be  exposed  to  Risk  ;  for  as  the  Authority  given  to  the 
Farmers  wou'd  reduce  the  present  Incumbents  to  the  level  of 
mere  Pensioners,  and  greatly  weaken  their  claims  as  Proprietors, 
so  in  the  course  of  a  few  long  Leases,  their  Rights  and  Titles 
might,  from  the  designs  of  the  Farmers  to  establish  themselves 


Appx.  a.]  B  V  WARREN  HASTINGS.  3S9 

in  their  Estates,  the  death  of  the  old  Inheritors,  and  the  succes- 
sion of  Minors,  be  involved  in  such  obscurity,  doubt,  and  con- 
troversy, as  to  deprive  them  totally  of  their  Inheritance.  To 
expose  the  Zemindars  and  Talookdars  to  this  risk,  is  neither 
consistent  with  our  Notions  of  Equity,  nor  with  your  orders, 
which  direct,  '  that  we  do  not  by  any  sudden  change  alter  the 
constitution,  nor  deprive  the  Zemindars,  etc.,  of  their  antient 
priviledges  and  Immunities.' 

Another  argument,  drawn  from  the  conduct  naturally  to  be 
expected  from  the  Zemindars  and  Talookdars,  weighed  strongly 
with  us,  and  proves  an  objection  to  adopting  the  first  Mode. 
From  a  long  continuance  of  the  Lands  in  their  Families,  it  is  to 
be  concluded  they  have  rivetted  an  authority  in  the  District, 
acquired  an  Ascendency  over  the  Minds  of  the  Ryotts,  and 
ingratiated  their  affections.  From  Causes  like  these,  if  entire 
Deprivation  were  to  take  place,  there  could  not  be  expected  less 
Material  Effects  than  all  the  Evils  of  a  divided  Authority,  preju- 
dicial to  the  Revenue,  and  Desertion  and  Desolation  of  the 
Lands.  Whereas  from  continuing  the  Lands  under  the  Manage- 
ment of  those  who  have  a  natural  and  perpetual  Interest  in  their 
Prosperity,  provided  their  Value  is  not  of  too  great  an  amount, 
solid  Advantages  may  be  expected  to  accrue.  Every  considera- 
tion then  sways  us,  where  it  can  be  done  with  the  prospect  of 
the  advantage  before  mentioned,  to  adopt  the  second  mode  in 
settling  with  the  Inferior  Zemindars  and  Talookdars.  First,  an 
equivalent  Revenue  may  be  thereby  obtained,  with  security  for 
its  punctual  Payment.  Secondly,  the  converting  them  into 
Farmers  establishes  the  Government's  right  of  putting  their 
Lands  on  that  Footing,  whenever  they  shall  think  proper  ;  the 
Awe  of  which  must  constandy  operate  to  secure  their  good 
behaviour  and  good  Management.  Thirdly,  the  Clause  of 
Scrutiny,  to  which  they  are  subjected,  will  also  have  the  same 
Tendency,  at  the  same  time  that  it  may  be  strictly  put  in  force 
where  there  is  cause  to  suspect  Concealments,  or  a  prospect 
presents  of  Increase  to  the  Revenue. 

Agreeably  to  these  Ideas,  the  Committee  at  Kishcnnagiir 
exempted  the  several  Talooks  in  that  District  from  the  Public 
Sale,  as  the  Possessors  engaged  to  abide  by  such  a  Settlement  as 
should  be  deemed  e(iuivalent  and  just  ;  and  an  exact  valuation 
was  accordingly  made  of  their  Lands.     It  was,  however,  found 


390  BENGAL  IN  1772,  PORTRAYED      [Appx.  A. 

tliat  the  Terms  offered  by  tlie  Zemindar  of  Kishennagur,  as 
before  mentioned,  were  not  equivalent  to  the  expectations  the 
Committee  had  reason  to  Entertain  from  the  Public  Auction  of 
the  separate  Farms,  and  the  Faith  of  Government  having  already 
been  engaged  to  such  Farmers  whose  offers  had  been  formally 
accepted.  For  these  Reasons,  joined  with  the  well-known  subtle 
and  faithless  character  of  the  Zemindar,  it  was  determined  to 
reject  his  proposals,  and  to  give  the  Preference  to  the  offer  of 
the  Farmers,  which  were  more  advantageous  to  Government. 

The  Settlement  of  Kishennagur  being  concluded,  a  fixed 
Dewan  was  chosen  by  the  Committee  to  be  joined  with  the 
Collector  in  the  Superintendancy  of  the  Revenues,  conformably 
to  our  Established  Regulations  before  referred  to  ;  and  instruc- 
tions were  accordingly  given  him  for  his  guidance. 

We  have  been  thus  explicit  in  relating  the  Transactions  at 
Kishenagur,  both  as  these  will  serve  to  point  out  the  various 
effects  of  our  previous  Determinations,  as  well  as  the  Motives 
which  gave  Occasion  to  those  which  were  superadded  by  the 
Committee,  from  local  or  general  Observation,  and  to  convey  an 
Idea  of  the  Plan  on  which  the  settlement  of  the  whole  Province 
will  be  formed,  of  which  that  of  Kishenagur  may  be  regarded  as 
the  Model. 

From  Kishenagur  the  Committee  proceeded  to  Cossimbazaar, 
and  arrived  there  the  beginning  of  July.  One  of  their  first  objects 
was  the  regulating  the  Nabob's  Household  and  Stipend,  and  the 
appointing  of  the  necessary  Officers  for  the  Management  of  his 
Affairs.  But  as  these  Matters  will  be  fully  discussed  in  our 
Letter  from  the  General  Department,  We  shall  confine  this 
Address  solely  to  the  current  Business  of  the  Revenue. 

The  Province  of  Radshahy  and  the  Huzzoor  Zilahs  were 
taken  next  into  Consideration,  and  the  same  Regulations  estab- 
lished previous  to  their  Settlement,  as  at  Kisenagur.  Public 
Advertisements  being  made  for  receiving  Proposals  for  famiing 
the  different  Purgunnahs  in  Radshahy,  and  a  proper  time  limited 
for  their  delivery,  the  terms  given  in  for  the  whole  of  the  Western 
Division  were  examined,  and  the  Offers  of  the  Farmers  and 
Zemindar  accurately  compared.  Those  of  the  latter  were  found 
more  advantageous  to  Government.  A  settlement  for  five  years 
was  accordingly  concluded  with  the  Ranny  Bowanny,  the  Zemin- 
dar of  that   District,   whose    Substance,   Credit,  and   Character 


Appx.  A.]  BY  WARREN  HASTINGS.  391 

rendered  the  Conditions  of  her  Offer  the  more  desireable, 
especially  as  she  consented  to  the  Committee's  Plan  of  sub- 
dividing the  Lands  into  fourteen  Lots  or  Farms,  and  engaged  to 
deposit  the  Farmer's  Cabooleats  or  Agreements  as  a  Collateral 
Security  with  her  own,  for  the  punctual  Payment  of  her  Rents. 
No  other  Proposals  being  given  in  for  the  Eastern  Division  of 
Radshahy,  it  was  in  like  manner  farmed  to  the  zemindar,  whose 
Knowledge  of,  and  long-established  Reputation  in,  the  Country 
enabled  her  to  make  more  advantageous  Offers  for  this  also  than 
any  other  person  ;  and  We  doubt  not  that  We  shall  realize  the 
whole  of  the  Revenue  from  these  important  and  extensive  Dis- 
tricts, which  will  receive  an  additional  Advantage,  besides  a 
Reduction  of  the  Expence  of  the  Collections,  in  being  thus  united 
under  the  hereditary  and  ancient  Proprietor. 

For  the  particular  Reasons  and  Arguments  urged  in  our 
several  Proceedings,  referred  to  in  the  margin,  and  which  will 
be  farther  treated  on  in  our  Letter  from  the  other  Department, 
you  will  observe  that  We  have  found  it  expedient  to  annex  to 
Mr.  Middleton's  Appointment  of  Resident  of  the  Durbar  and 
Chief  of  Cossimbazar,  the  Supcrintendency  of  the  Collections  of 
Radshahy,  in  the  conducting  of  which,  the  whole  being  put  under 
the  immediate  Management  of  the  Zemindar,  his  only  care  as 
Collector  will  be  to  receive  the  monthly  Kists  as  they  may 
become  due,  to  attend  to  the  Complaints  and  Representations 
of  the  Ryotts,  and  to  see  that  the  Regulations  which  have  been 
made  are  duly  adhered  to. 

The  Huzzoor  Zillahs,  and  the  inferior  Zemindaries  and 
Talookdaries  bordering  on  Moorshedabad  and  Rajshahy,  were 
also  settled  on  the  same  Plan,  a  Preference  being  always  given 
to  the  Offers  of  the  Hereditary  Possessors  as  before  observed. 
But  as  it  would  take  up  too  much  of  your  Time  to  descend  to  a 
minute  Detail  of  these  numerous  Settlements,  we  must  take  the 
Liberty  of  referring  you  to  the  Proceedings  of  the  late  Committee 
of  Circuit.  You  will  therein  notice  that  we  have  appointed  five 
additional  Collectors  to  superintend  the  Revenue  of  those  Dis- 
tricts. It  was  with  some  reluctance  we  found  ourselves  under 
the  necessity  of  increasing  the  Number  of  these  Appointments. 
They  were  rendered  unavoidable  by  the  Intricacy  of  those  parts 
of  the  Huzzoor  Zilahs,  which  have  been  thus  distributed  amongst 
them  \  but  We  hope  that  the  Liberty  which  We  have  given  to  the 


392  BENGAL  IN  1772,  PORTRAYED      [Appx.  A. 

Farmers,  who  may  be  so  disposed,  to  pay  their  Rents  immediately 
to  the  Sudderor  Head  Cutcherry,  will  in  time  enable  us  to  reduce 
these  Establishments. 

In  the  Intervals  of  Public  Business,  the  Committee  were 
employed  in  deliberating  on  the  steps  referred  to  them,  which 
were  proper  to  be  taken  for  carrying  into  Execution  your  late 
Orders  by  the  Lapwing,  where  you  declare  your  Intention  of 
Standing  forth  as  Dewan  by  the  Agency  of  the  Company's 
Servants,  to  assume  the  '  entire  Management  of  the  Revenues,' 
leaving  it  to  us  to  plan  and  execute  this  important  Work,  '  by 
adopting  such  Regulations,  and  pursuing  such  Measures,  as 
should  at  once  insure  to  the  Company  every  possible  Advantage.' 

The  first  Consideration  was  whether  the  Board  of  Revenue 
at  Moorshedabad  should  be  abolished,  and  the  Business  of  the 
Collections  in  all  its  Branches,  put  under  the  management  of  the 
Members  of  your  Administration  at  the  Presidency ;  and  after 
allowing  due  Weight  to  every  Argument  that  occurred,  We  agreed 
unimously  with  the  Committee  in  the  Necessity  of  this  last 
Measure,  which  has  accordingly  been  since  carried  into  Execu- 
tion. We  take  the  Liberty  of  laying  before  you  the  Grounds 
upon  which  we  have  ventured  to  make  this  Alteration,  in  the 
flattering  hopes  that  it  will  meet  with  your  approval. 

As  the  Administration  of  Justice,  and  the  Collection  of  the 
Revenue,  are  by  far  the  most  important  object  of  Government, 
they  certainly  claim  the  first  Attention  of  your  President  and 
Council,  especially  at  a  time  when  so  many  weighty  matters, 
intimately  connected  with  them,  are  entrusted  by  you  to  our 
Investigation  and  Judgment,  and  when  the  State  of  the  Country 
requires  timely,  well-digested,  and  spirited  Measures.  While  the 
Controuling  and  Executive  Part  of  the  Revenue,  and  the  corre- 
spondence with  the  Collectors,  was  carried  by  a  Council  at  Moor- 
shedabad, the  Members  of  your  Administration  had  not  an 
opportunity  of  acquiring  that  thorough  and  comprehensive  know- 
ledge of  the  Revenue,  which  can  only  result  from  practical 
Experience.  But  as  your  late  orders  tend  to  establish  a  new 
System,  enjoin  many  new  Regulations  and  Enquiries  which  could 
not  properly  be  delegated  to  a  Subordinate  Council,  it  became 
absolutely  necessary  that  the  Business  of  the"  Revenue  should  be 
conducted  under  our  immediate  Observation  and  Direction. 

This  change,  We  trust,  will  afford  great  Relief  to  the  Inhabit- 


Appx.  a.]  B  V  WARREN  HASTINGS.  393 

ants  of  the  Provinces,  in  opening  to  them  a  more  ready  Access 
to  Justice,  insomuch  that  Appeals  from  the  Decisions  of  the 
Inferior  Courts  may  now  be  made  directly  to  the  Presidency, 
whereas  formerly  they  were  first  transmitted  to  the  Council  at 
Moorshedabad,  and  from  thence  an  Appeal  lay  to  Us. 

Another  good  Consequence  will  be  the  great  Increase  of 
Inhabitants,  and  of  Wealth  in  Calcutta,  which  will  not  only  add 
to  the  Consumption  of  our  most  valuable  Manufactures  imported 
from  home,  but  will  be  the  means  of  conveying  to  the  Natives  a 
more  intimate  Knowledge  of  our  Customs  and  Manners,  and  of 
conciliating  them  to  our  Policy  and  Government. 

Besides  the  Reasons  above  urged  for  the  Dissolution  of  the 
Council  at  Moorshedabad,  We  must  beg  leave  to  add  this  farther 
Argument,  in  reply  to  the  objection  which  may  possibly  be  made 
to  it  as  repugnant  to  your  Commands  of  the  30th  June  1769. 
We  now  conceive  them,  however,  to  be  superseded  by  your  later 
Orders  and  the  Discretionary  Power  you  have  given  us  in  your 
letter  by  the  Lapwing.  Nevertheless,  we  should  have  thought 
ourselves  indispensably  bound  to  have  adhered  to  the  Spirit  of 
them,  so  far  as  they  could  be  made  to  coincide  with  the  new 
System  of  the  Dewanny,  but  we  found  them  totally  subverted 
by  it. 

While  Moorshedabad  remained  the  Seat  of  your  Collections, 
every  consideration  required  the  Establishment  of  a  Council  to 
Superintend  them,  as  it  was  a  trust  every  way  too  great  for  an 
individual.  On  these  grounds  alone  we  presumed  your  Orders 
for  fomiing  such  Councils  at  Moorshedabad  and  Patna  were 
framed.  But  when  the  office  of  Naib  Dwan  was  abolished,  and 
you  had  declared  your  Resolution  to  place  the  Collections  under 
the  immediate  charge  of  your  own  Servants,  there  remained  no 
Reason  for  continuing  that  Department  of  the  Revenue  at  such 
a  distance  from  the  Observation  of  your  Governor  and  Council  ; 
and  the  Removal  of  the  Collection  to  the  Presidency,  as  it  left 
no  Business  for  an  inferior  Council,  of  course  rendered  their  con- 
tinuance, and  the  charges  attending  such  an  establishment,  need- 
less. We  will  indulge  ourselves,  therefore,  with  another  Hope, 
that  an  annual  saving  of  some  Lacks  of  Rupees  will  be  derived 
from  this  alteration,  altho'  We  are  well  aware  of  the  Expencc  and 
Inconvenience  which  ever  attends  Innovations  of  all  kinds  on 
their  first  Institution. 


394  BENGAL  IN  1772,  PORTRAYED       [Appx.  A. 

As  the  Reasons  for  the  Removal  of  the  Khalsa  are  treated  on 
very  largely  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Committee  of  Circuit  of 
28th  July,  and  contain  many  Observations  on  the  Nature  of  the 
Revenue  in  general,  which  are  too  voluminous  to  be  inserted  in 
the  Body  of  this  Letter,  we  wish  to  recommend  these  to  your 
particular  attention. 

The  Plan  which  we  have  formed  for  conducting  the  Business 
of  the  Khalsa,  or  Superior  Office  of  the  Collections,  will  go  a 
Number  in  the  Packet. 

The  more  regular  Administration  of  Justice  was  also  delibe- 
rated on  by  the  Committee  of  Circuit,  and  a  Plan  was  formed  by 
them  which  afterwards  met  with  our  Approbation.  We  cannot 
give  you  a  better  Idea  of  the  Grounds  on  which  this  was  framed, 
than  by  referring  you  to  a  Copy  of  it,  together  with  a  Letter  from 
the  Committee  to  the  Board  on  the  Occasion,  both  of  which 
make  Numbers  in  this  Packet ;  and  we  earnestly  recommend  them 
to  your  Perusal,  requesting  to  be  assisted  with  such  further 
Orders  and  Instructions  thereon  as  they  may  require  for  com- 
pleating  the  system,  which  we  have  thus  endeavoured  to  establish 
on  the  most  equitable,  solid,  and  permanent  footing.  We  hope 
they  will  be  read  with  that  Indulgence  which  We  are  humbly  of 
Opinion  is  due  to  a  Work  of  this  kind,  undertaken  on  the  plain 
Principles  of  Experience  and  common  Observation,  without  the 
advantages  which  an  intimate  Knowledge  of  the  Theory  of  Law 
might  have  afforded  us.  We  have  endeavoured  to  adapt  our 
Regulations  to  the  Manners  and  Understanding  of  the  People, 
and  Exegencies  of  the  Country,  adhering,  as  closely  as  We  were 
able,  to  their  Antient  Usages  and  Institutions.  It  will  be 
still  a  Work  of  some  Months,  We  fear,  before  they  can  be 
thoroughly  established  throughout  the  Provinces  ;  but  We  shall 
think  our  Labors  amply  recompensed  if  they  meet  with  your 
Approbation,  and  are  productive  of  the  good  Effects  we  had  in 
view. 

Our  President  returned  to  Calcutta  about  the  middle  of  Sep- 
tember. Mr.  Middleton  remained  at  Moorshedabad  to  take 
charge  of  his  Appointments,  and  the  other  three  Members  of  the 
Committee  of  Circuit  proceeded  to  Dacca,  where  they  are  now 
cm])loyed  in  making  the  Settlement  of  that  Province  and  the 
adjacent  Districts,  after  which  they  will  continue  their  Tour  to 
the  remaining  Divisions  on  the  Eastern  Side  of  Bengal  ;  and  We 


Appx.  a.]  B  V  V/ARREN  HASTINGS.  395 

hope  to  transmit  the  further  Particulars  of  their  Proceedings  by 
one  of  the  Ships  of  this  Season,  together  with  a  Compleat  State- 
ment of  your  Revenue  for  the  following  five  Years. 

Besides  the  General  Plan  before  mentioned  for  regulating  the 
New  System  of  conducting  the  Revenues,  and  the  several  other 
Points  therein  referred  to,  the  Committee  of  Revenue  at  the 
Presidency,  composed  of  the  remaining  Members  of  your  Council, 
were  employed  in  preparing  the  Settlements  of  the  Districts  of 
Hougly,  Midnapore,  Beerbhoom,  Jessore,  and  the  Calcutta 
Lands.  These,  together  with  the  Districts  allotted  to  the  Com- 
mittee of  Circuit,  compleat  the  whole  of  Bengal,  excepting 
Burdwan,  where  the  Lands  are  already  lett  in  Farm,  on  Leases 
of  five  years,  which  do  not  expire  till  the  end  of  the  Bengal  year 
1 182  (a.d.  1775). 

In  consequence  of  the  Public  Advertisement  for  making  the 
Setdement  of  Hougly,  a  number  of  Proposals  for  farming  the 
Lands  were  delivered  in  ;  and  after  an  exact  scrutiny  was  made 
into  them,  those  which  appeared  to  be  the  most  advantageous  to 
Government  were  accepted.  It  was  originally  intended  to  have 
lett  them  in  small  Farms  ;  but  the  Offers  for  large  Lots  being 
much  higher  than  the  others,  We  were  tempted  to  prefer  them. 
There  were  likewise  many  Talookdarries  and  petty  Zemindarries 
in  this  District,  the  Possessors  of  which  represented  to  us  the 
Length  of  Time  they  had  held  their  Lands,  and  the  wTCtched 
condition  they  would  be  reduced  to  were  they  now  to  be  de- 
prived of  them.  As  they  engaged  to  pay  to  Government  an 
increased  Rent  in  proportion  to  their  value,  We  were  induced  by 
the  same  Motives  as  actuated  the  Committee  of  Circuit  in  similar 
Instances  to  continue  to  them  their  hereditary  Possessions.  In 
one  or  two  of  the  Purgunnas  some  Deductions  were  found  neces- 
sary to  be  made,  on  account  of  the  particular  degree  in  which 
they  had  suffered  by  the  late  Famine  ;  but  a  favourable  increase 
being  added  to  the  other  Purgannas,  We  have  reason  to  be  satis- 
fied with  the  good  success  which  has  attended  the  Settlement  of 
I  loughly  and  its  Dependancies. 

The  Settlement  of  Beerbhoom,  Bissenpoor,  and  Pacheat  has 
also  been  effected  upon  an  increasing  Revenue,  on  a  Plan  similar 
to  the  other  Farmed  Lands. 

The  Districts  of  Jessore  and  Mahomed  Shahy  are  Settled  on 
Terms  advantageous  to  Government,  as  appears  by  the  Accounts 


396  BENGAL  IN  1772,  PORTRAYED      [Ai-ix.  A. 

delivered  in  by  Mr.  Lane,  a  Member  of  our  Board,  who  was 
deputed  to  accomplish  that  Business  ;  and  a  full  Representation 
of  his  Proceedings  is  recorded  on  (sic)  our  Consultation  of  the 
loth  of  August. 

By  the  Proceedings  it  appears  that  the  Calcutta  Lands  have 
been  compleatly  farmed  ;  but  as  some  of  the  Farmers  have  flown 
off  from  their  Engagements  and  absconded,  and  the  Execution  of 
the  Title  Deeds  with  the  rest  is  delayed,  We  have  hitherto  been 
prevented  from  finally  adjusting  this  Business.  We  shall  there- 
fore defer  transmitting  a  further  Statement  of  these  Lands  till  the 
next  Ship,  as  well  as  that  of  Midnapoor,  the  settlement  of  which 
is  now  in  great  forwardness. 

In  pursuance  of  your  positive  Injunctions,  We  have  been 
endeavouring  for  some  time  past  to  collect  the  fullest  Information 
concerning  the  Salt  Business  in  Bengal,  that  we  may  be  enabled 
to  form  such  Regulations  as  shall  appear  the  best  calculated  for 
securing  the  Duties  of  Government  upon  that  article,  and  for  the 
general  Benefit  of  the  Trade.  For  our  Proceedings  in  these 
Matters,  so  far  as  we  have  hitherto  been  able  to  effect,  we  refer 
you  to  the  Consultations  now  transmitted,  and  particularly  to 
that  of  the  7th  October.  And  as  this  subject  is  one  of  the  first 
that  will  fall  under  our  Consideration,  We  expect  in  our  next 
Advices  to  furnish  you  with  a  Compleat  State  of  it. 

The  Hougly  disputed  Ballancies  of  Salt,  which  have  been 
a  Matter  of  Contention  and  Difficulty  for  these  two  years  past, 
We  have  at  length  happily  adjusted,  as  recorded  in  our  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  ist  of  October. 

The  Bukshbunder  or  Customs  at  Hougly,  as  well  as  those  of 
the  Pachetra  at  Moorshedabad,  have  not  been  lett  to  farm,  but 
continue  to  be  collected  by  the  Officers  of  Government,  in  order 
that  no  Obstacles  may  occur  in  New-modelling  this  Source  of 
your  Revenue  agreeably  to  your  Instructions.  At  present 
we  wait  for  Advices  and  further  Lights  from  the  Committee 
of  Circuit  at  Dacca  concerning  the  Shawbunder,  or  Head 
Custom  House,  in  that  District.  Being  furnished  with  these. 
We  shall  proceed  to  form  one  general  and  uniform  Plan  for 
the  Collection  of  Duties,  which  will  be  duly  transmitted  for  your 
Information. 

The  humane  Attention  shown  in  your  Commands  of  the  30th 
June  1769,  and  recommended  in  many  of  your  Letters  since  that 


Appx.  A.J  BY  WARREN  HASTINGS.  397 

Date,  to  the  Rights  of  the  Zemindars  who  have  inherited  Lands 
from  their  Ancestors,  encourages  us  to  soHcit  your  Compassion 
for  the  antient  Proprietors  of  the  Twenty-four  Pergunnas,  or  Cal- 
cutta Lands,  which  became  the  Company's  Zemindarry  by  the 
Treaty  of  Plassey,  and  from  which  they  were  consequently  dis- 
possessed. A  small  Part  of  their  Lands  were  before  that  Time 
united  with  the  Zemindarries  of  Burdwan  and  Nuddea,  whose 
Zemindars  are  amply  provided  for.  The  other  Zemindars  and 
Taalindars  {sic)  have  continued  since  that  Time  in  a  State  of 
extreme  Indigence.  Some  of  them  have  large  families  to  main- 
tain. It  has  been  the  usual  Rule  of  the  Mogul  Government, 
when  any  Zemindar  was  divested  of  authority,  to  allow  him  a 
SubstancQ  out  of  the  Rents  of  his  Zemindarrie  proportioned  to 
the  annual  Income  of  it.  This  Proportion  commonly  ammounted 
to  One  Tenth.  We  would  not  recommend  so  large  an  Allow- 
ance for  these  people.  We  are  persuaded  that  they  will  be  con- 
tented with  a  much  more  moderate  income,  and  receive  it  with 
Gratitude.  As  this  Indulgence  has  been  extended  to  all  the 
other  Zemindars  in  both  the  Provinces  since  they  were  placed 
under  your  Government,  We  have  judged  that  this  Representa- 
tion of  the  Case  of  those  who  alone  have  been  excluded  from 
it  would  not  be  unacceptable  to  you. 

As  the  Settlement  of  the  Province  of  Bahar  had  been  made 
for  a  Term  of  Years,  and  therefore  did  not  require  any  immediate 
Alteration,  We  shall  wait  to  finish  the  whole  of  our  Regulations 
in  Bengal  before  we  attempt  any  Innovation  in  that  Province. 
The  only  point  on  which  We  think  We  can  give  you  any  previous 
Intimation  of  our  future  Proceedings  in  those  Parts  is,  that  we 
deem  it  proper  to  unite  the  Collections  with  those  of  Bengal,  and 
establish  the  same  Regulations  in  both  Provinces,  as  soon  as  We 
can  do  it  with  conveniency,  and  without  adding  to  our  present 
Embarrassments. 

In  the  Proceedings  of  our  Committee  of  Revenue  of  the  loth 
May  is  recorded  the  Particulars  of  a  Dispute  which  subsisted 
between  the  late  Council  of  Revenue  at  Moorshedabad  and  the 
Supervisor  of  Dinagepore,  Mr.  Henry  Cottrell,  the  Consequence 
of  which  was  the  recalling  the  latter  from  his  Appointment.  The 
several  Arguments  urged  against  his  Conduct  by  the  Council  of 
Revenue  at  Moorshedabad,  as  well  as  his  Letter  in  Vindication 
of  himself,  appear  fully  in  the  above  Proceedings  ;  and  we  must 


39S 


BENGAL  IN  i-^z. 


[Ai'PX.  A. 


beg  leave  to  refer  you  to  them,  that  you  may  form  such  a  Judge- 
ment of  this  Affair  as  your  Candor  and  Justice  may  point  out. 
We  are,  with  great  Respect,  Hon'ble  Sirs,  Your  most  faithful 
humble  Servants, 

(Signed)         Warren  Hastings.' 

R.  Barker. 

W.  Aldersey. 

Thomas  Lane. 

RiCHD.  Barwell. 

James  Harris. 

H.  Goodwin. 

Fort-William,  the  t^cI Novemher  1772. 


^  The  chief  portions  of  this  letter  are  from  Warren  Hastings'  own 


pen. 


APPENDIX    B. 


THE  GREAT  FAMINE   OF   1770,    DESCRIBED  BY 
EYE-WITNESSES. 

Section  I. — Selections  from  General  Letters  from  Bengal  (the 
more  important  in  full). 

25///  September  1769. — Paras.  20  to  27.  Devastations  of  the 
enemy  and  want  of  rain  for  many  months  had  rendered  grain  so 
exceedingly  scarce  at  Madras,  that  that  Government  had  become 
apprehensive  of  the  most  distressing  consequences.  Measures 
were  taken  to  supply  their  wants  from  Bengal,  but  scarcity  had 
prevailed  also  in  Bengal.  The  Lord  Holland  was  lost  on  her 
way  down  to  Madras  with  a  cargo  of  rice,  and  a  second  supply 
would  be  for^varded. 

T^oth  September  1769. — Para.  53.  Revenues  of  the  provinces 
of  Bengal  and  Behar  were  expected  to  fall  short,  owing  to  the 
very  unusual  scarcity  of  grain. 

23</  November  1769. — Paras.  8  to  10. — 8.  '  It  is  with  great 
concern,  Gentlemen,  that  we  are  to  inform  you  that  we  have  a 
most  melancholy  prospect  before  our  eyes  of  universal  distress  for 
want  of  grain.  ^  Owing  to  an  uncommon  drought  that  has  pre- 
vailed over  every  part  of  the  country,  insomuch  that  the  oldest 
inhabitants  never  remembered  to  have  known  anything  like  it, 
and  as  to  threaten  a  flvmine. 

9.  '  As  there  is  the  greatest  probability  that  this  distress  will 
encrease,  and  a  certainty  that  it  cannot  be  alleviated  for  six 
months  to  come,  we  have  ordered  a  stock  of  grain  sufficient  to 
serve  our  army  for  that  period,  to  be  laid  up  in  proper  store- 
houses ;  and  we  have  taken  and  shall  pursue  every  means  in  our 
power  to  relieve  the  miserable  situation  the  poor  inhabitants 
must  be  involved  in  from  this  dreadful  calamity ;  but  we  cannot 
•  This  letter  is  not  signed  by  the  Governor,  Mr.  Verelbt. 


400  GREAT  FAMINE  OF  v]-io,  [Ai'PX.  B. 

Hatter  ourselves  that  all  our  endeavours  will  prevent  very  fatal 
effects  being  felt,  or  that  human  means  can  check  its  baneful 
influence.' 

Para.  lo  anticipates  a  falling  off  of  the  revenue,  and  a  pro- 
bable necessity  for  an  abatement ;  but  excepting  this  (which  was 
most  imperfectly  carried  out),  no  specific  relief  measures  are 
specified,  nor  were  any  undertaken  till  long  after. 

2 ^th  January  1770. — Paras.  48  to  50. — 48.  'We  are  sorry  to 
acquaint  you  that  the  apprehensions  which  we  expressed  to  you 
in  our  letter  of  the  23d  November  last  regarding  the  consequence 
of  the  uncommon  drought  that  hath  prevailed  are  confirmed,  and 
this  general  calamity  is  severely  felt  in  all  the  provinces.  The 
Collector-General  hath  laid  before  us  a  representation  on  this 
occasion  from  the  Raja  and  Resident  of  Burdwaun,  proposing  a 
remission  to  be  made  in  the  rents  this  year ;  and  so  sensible  are 
we  of  the  melancholy  truth  of  what  they  set  forth,  that  we  have 
been  induced  to  grant  a  remission  to  the  farmers  of  the  Burd- 
waun province  of  about  2^  or  3  laacks  of  rupees,  taking  care 
that  they  also  extend  it  to  the  rjTits  ;  and  at  the  time  of  granting 
it,  bring  both  the  farmers  and  ryuts  tmder  engagements  that  the 
same  shall  be  replaced,  at  certain  periods,  along  with  their  rents  of 
next  year'' — [In  reality,  less  than  a  single  lac,  or  only  ^^82 18,  was 
remitted,  and  even  this  had  to  be  paid  up  at  the  commencement 
of  the  next  year  {vide  post.  pp.  403  and  406)] ;  '  and  we  have 
desired  the  Collector-General  to  adopt  this  system  in  the  Cal- 
cutta lands,  which  equally  require  the  same  indulgence. 

49.  '  By  this  method  we  hope  to  relieve  the  farmers  and  the 
ryuts,  who  in  this  time  of  dearth  and  distress  claim  all  the 
indulgence  and  assistance  that  we  can  afford  ;  and  we  also  hope 
that,  by  this  method,  you  will  only  suffer  a  temporary  inconveni- 
ence, not  a  total  loss,  and  that  if  the  next  should  be  a  plentiful 
year  these  remissions  will  be  recovered.' 

\th  February  1770. — Para.  5.  'In  Bengal  we  have  not  yet 
found  any  failure  in  the  revenue  or  stated  payments  ;  but  we 
must  not  flatter  ourselves,  in  a  country  where  the  labourer 
depends  merely  on  the  coming  in  of  the  harvest,  not  on  any 
established  or  accumulate  property,  that  he  can  always  pay  the 
full  demands  of  Government ;  neither  can  we,  with  any  regard 
to  justice  or  consequences,  insist  on  it.' 

9M  May  1770 — Secret. — Para.  3.  'If  the  internal  prosperity 


Appx.  B.]      DESCRIBED  BY  EYE-WITNESSES.        401 

of  these  provinces  corresponded  with  our  external  security,  we 
should  be  happy ;  but  it  is  far  otherwise.  Not  a  drop  of  rain 
has  fallen  in  most  of  the  districts  for  six  months.  The  famine 
which  has  ensued,  the  mortality,  the  beggary,  exceed  all  descrip- 
tion. Above  one-third  of  the  inhabitants  have  perished  in  the 
once  plentiful  province  of  Purneah,  and  in  other  parts  the  misery 
is  equal.  The  Supravisor  of  Behar  has  represented  to  our 
Resident,  that  the  harvest,  which  in  that  province  is  gathered 
during  the  months  of  March  and  April,  has  yielded  but  a  scanty 
return  ;  that  the  price  of  grain  has  risen  even  since  the  harvest ; 
and  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  remove  the  brigade  from 
Bankypore  beyond  the  Curamnapa,  to  save  the  lives  of  many 
poor  people  who  might  be  subsisted  from  what  the  brigade  con- 
sumed. Though  it  was  the  last  necessity  that  induced  the  Supra- 
visor of  Behar  to  make  this  proposal,  yet  your  orders  against  it 
are  so  strong,  the  season  so  fatal  to  Europeans  on  a  march,  the 
policy  of  keeping  our  troops  as  near  as  possible  to  the  Presidency 
so  obvious,  and  the  consequences  of  being  involved  in  the  same 
difficulties  with  the  king  from  which  we  have  been  but  lately 
freed  so  much  to  be  dreaded,  that  however  advisable  it  appears 
in  other  respects,  we  could  not  with  propriety  adopt  that  method 
of  relief.  We  have,  however,  consented  to  remove  two  battalions 
and  the  cavalry  from  the  cantonments  to  the  Fort  of  Buxar,  there 
to  encamp,  which  will  be  attended  with  some  alleviation  to  the 
distresses  of  Patna,^  and  with  no  disagreable  consequences  to 
your  political  interest.  On  the  contrary,  since  the  king  and 
vizier  have  resumed  an  intimate  correspondence  and  intercourse 
with  us,  we  have  thought  it  no  unfavourable  occasion  to  bind 
them  faster  to  us,  by  interpreting  this  motion  of  your  troops  into 
a  zeal  for  their  honour  and  support  against  all  aggressors.' 

z'ilh  June  1770. — Para.  2.  '  Few  alterations  have  happened 
during  this  short  interval.  The  famine  of  which  we  have  already 
given  you  an  unexaggerated  description  has  continued  to  rage 
with  all  its  fatal  consequences  ;  and  notwithstanding  all  our  efforts 
to  administer  relief  by  public  contribution  to  the  poor,  remis- 
sion of  the  collections,  and  importations  from  the  neighbouring 
provinces,  we  have  beheld  the  calamity  daily  increasing.  Your 
revenues   must  suffer  from   it   both  now  and  in  future;  but  no 

•  But  in  the  same  detjree  an  aggravation  of  the  distress  at  Buxar,  in  the 
very  centre  of  the  most  cruelly  stricken  districts. 

vol,.    T.  2   C 


402  GJ^EAT  FAMINE  OF  i-j-jo,  [Appx.  B. 

endeavours  shall  be  omitted  on  our  parts  to  render  this  evil  as 
light  and  as  temporary  as  possible.' 

^ist  August  1770. — Para.  14.  '  If  the  accounts  transmitted  in 
our  letter  of  the  9th  r>Iay  last  of  the  general  calamity  which 
famine  had  extended  to  almost  every  part  of  these  provinces  were 
truly  alarming,  how  much  more  so  must  they  now  be,  when  we 
inform  you  that  our  miseries  have  been  daily  increasing  to  the 
present  period  ;  nor  do  we  view  relief  but  as  a  distant  prospect. 
It  naturally  follows  that,  from  so  calamitous  an  event,  great 
failures  in  the  collection  of  the  revenue  must  be  the  inevitable 
consequence ;  but  still  we  are  willing  to  hope  they  will  not  be  so 
great  as  our  apprehensions  have  conceived.' 

iit/i  Septetnher  1770. — Para.  4.  'In  the  several  letters  from 
this  committee,  we  have  endeavoured  to  give  a  very  faithful, 
candid,  and  impartial  account  of  the  distress  this  country  has 
suffered  from  the  severity  of  a  famine  ;  indeed,  it  is  scarcely 
possible  that  any  description  could  be  an  exaggeration  of  the 
misery  the  inhabitants  of  it  have  encountered  with.  It  is  not 
then  to  be  wondered  that  this  calamity  has  had  its  influence  on 
the  collections ;  but  we  are  happy  to  remark  they  have  fell  less 
short  than  we  supposed  they  would  when  a  famine  was  only 
apprehended,  and  when  we  could  form  no  idea  to  what  a  pitch  of 
misery  the  country  would  be  reduced. 

5.  '  From  the  annual  accounts  received  within  these  few  days 
from  our  Resident  at  the  Durbar,  we  find  that  the  neat  sum  col- 
lected is  sicca  rupees  one  crore  thirty-eight  laack  (sic)  two  thousand 
six  hundred  and  ninety-three  nine  annoes  and  ten  pie  (Sa.  Rs. 
1,38,02,693:9:10);'  (but  an  additional  sum  of  Rs.  2,03,337  was 
also  wrung  out  of  the  people,  making  a  total  of  Rs.  1,40,06,030  ;) 
'that  sicca  rupees  eight  laack  three  thousand  three  hundred  and 
twenty-one,  fifteen  annoes  (Sa.  Rs.  8,03,321 :  15)  have  been  obliged 
to  be  totally  remitted  in  the  different  provinces,  to  alleviate  the 
distress  of  the  wretched  inhabitants'  (i.e.  a  paltry  deduction  of 
5  per  cent,  from  the  revenue  in  a  province  that  had  lost  35  per 
cent,  of  its  population) ;  '  and  that  a  balance  of  sicca  rupees  six 
laak  fourteen  thousand  two  hundred  and  nineteen,  eight  annas 
(Sa.  Rs.  6,14,219:8),  remains  to  be  collected  of  last  year's  agree- 
ment; that  at  the  new  Pumeah,  which  commenced  on  the  loth 
April  1770,  a  new  statement  was  made  of  one  crore,  fifty-two 
laak,  forty-five  thousand  nine  hundred  seventy-nine  rupees,  fifteen 


Appx.  B.]     DESCRIBED  BY  EYE-WITNESSES.        403 

annoes  twelve  pies  (1,52,45,979:15:2)  for  Bengal'  (being  an 
increase  of  10  per  cent,  during  the  year  of  famine  !),  'which  our 
Resident,  from  the  authority  of  Mahomed  Reza  Cawn,  gives  us 
some  faint  hopes  of  realising,  should  the  season  prove  favour- 
able, notwithstanding  the  loss  the  country  has  sustained  in  the 
number  of  inhabitants.' 

2^/1  Decetnber  i-j-jo. — Para.  22.  '  The  famine  having  entirely 
ceased,  and  there  being  such  an  earnest  of  a  plentiful  crop  that 
there  is  already  great  quantity  of  grain  in  this  place,  and  a  pro- 
spect of  much  abundance  in  a  short  time,  we  have  recommended 
it  to  the  Board  to  lay  in  a  quantity  of  provisions  in  the  new  Fort, 
to  answer  any  emergencies,  and  this  we  hope  will  be  done  at  a 
very  cheap  rate.' 

i2ih  February  I'^li. — Paras.  43  and  44. — 43.  '  In  our  letter  of 
the  25th  January  1770,  by  the  Grafton,  we  informed  you  that,  on 
account  of  the  famine  which  prevailed  throughout  the  country, 
we  had  made  a  remission  to  the  farmers  in  the  Burdwaun  pro- 
vince of  about  2\  or  3  lacks  of  rupees,  on  condition  that  they 
should  discharge  it  at  certain  periods,  with  the  rents  of  the  ne.\t 
year. 

44.  '  But  the  Collector-General  has  represented  to  us  that 
the  great  increase  of  the  famine  since  that  period  has  been  the 
cause  of  such  a  mortality  and  desertion  amongst  the  ryotts, 
as  to  deprive  the  farmers  of  a  possibility  of  receiving  the  rents 
that  had  been  allowed  to  run  in  arrear ;  and  Uiat  therefore, 
if  some  reduction  of  the  sum  remitted  was  not  made,  many 
of  the  farmers  would  be  ruined.  On  a  scrutiny  made  by  Mr. 
Stuart,  it  appeared  that  the  farmers  had  lost  by  the  death  or 
desertions  of  the  ryots,  82,180  rupees  of  the  above  3  lacks. 
As  it  was  not  expected,  when  this  temporary  remission  was 
allowed,  that  the  famine  would  have  been  so  fatal,  and  as  it 
appeared  but  equitable  that  the  formers  should  be  relieved  of 
the  payment  of  sums  which  they  could  not  collect  from  the 
ryotts,  we  authorised  the  Collector-General  to  allow  the  far- 
mers the  sum  above  specified,  should  it  be  found  on  a  further 
scrutiny  that  it  could  not  with  justice  be  reduced.'  (In  reality, 
the  remission  was  reduced  to  nothing,  for  the  whole  was  paid 
up.      Vide  post.  p.  406.) 

\2th  February  177 1. — Para.  2.  'Notwithstanding  the  great 
severity  of  the  late  famine,  and  the  great  reduction  of  people 


404  GREAT  FAMINE  OF  i-i-jo,  [Appx.  B. 

thereby,  some  increase  has  been  made  in  the  settlements  both  of 
the  Bengal  and  Bahar  provinces  for  the  present  year ;  and  we 
hope,  as  the  country  recovers  itself  in  succeeding  years,  a  much 
larger  increase  may  be  made  v/ithout  oppressing  the  r)'otts. 
From  the  progress  already  made  in  the  collections,  and  from 
the  attention  and  vigilance  of  the  Councils  of  Revenue,  and 
the  supravisors  in  the  different  districts,  we  hope  the  amount 
of  revenue  fixed  for  the  present  year  will  be  in  great  measure 
realised  ;  though  in  some  particular  parts,  where  the  loss  of 
inhabitants  has  been  greatest,  and  in  others  where  the  suc- 
ceeding crop  has  been  destroyed  by  the  overflowing  of  the  river, 
we  are  apprehensive  deficiencies  will  be  unavoidable.' 

12th  April  1 77 1. — P.S.  to  2d  April.  'We  must  likewise 
inform  you  that  great  progress  has  been  made  on  the  fortifi- 
cations since  our  engineer's  last  report,  considering  the  immense 
difficulty  we  have  found  in  procuring  a  sufficient  number  of 
coolies,  owing  to  the  mortality  which  has  in  general  fallen  on 
the  lower  ranks  of  people  in  Bengal.' 

10th  January  1772. — Paras.  15-19. — 15.  'We  are  sorry  to 
find  ourselves  under  the  necessity  of  apologizing  for  a  very 
considerable  mistake  committed  in  the  information  we  gave 
you  as  to  the  state  of  balances  of  last  year,  under  direction  of 
the  Council  of  Revenue  at  Moorshedabad.  It  proceeded  from 
inserting  the  amount  of  balances  at  the  end  of  March  for  the 
balance  of  the  year.  We  now  beg  leave  to  correct  so  con- 
siderable an  error,  and  it  is  with  pleasure  we  inform  you  that 
the  neat  balance  of  last  year's  settlement  of  that  department 
amounts  only  to  rupees  eighteen'  lacks,  thirty-eight  thousand 
six  hundred  and  sixty-one,  four  annas,  two  gundas,  and  three 
cowries.'  (The  balance  was  subsequently  reduced  to  twelve 
lacs,  or  less  than  the  increase  which  had  been  made  to  the  rrvenue 
during  the  famine  year. ) 

16,  '  We  have  likewise  the  pleasure  to  obser\e  that  the  col- 
lections in  each  department  of  revenue  are  as  successfully 
carried  on  for  the  present  year  as  we  could  have  wished  ;  and 
from  the  favourableness  of  the  season,  we  have  no  doubt  that 
they  will  be  nearer  completed  to  the  amount  of  their  different 
settlements  than  in  any  of  the  preceding  years. 

17.  'The  statement  of  the  Bahar  collections  for  the  Bengal 
year  11 78,  or  1770-71,  we  have  received  since  our  last  advices  ; 


Appx.  B.]     DESCRIBED  BY  EYE-WITNESSES.         405 

and  we  find,  to  our  great  satisfaction,  that  they  have  amounted 
to  Rs.  43,61,651:0:6,  exclusive  of  extra  collections  arising 
from  the  balances  of  former  years'  Tegarry,  profit  on  interest  and 
batta,  etc.,  which  amount  to  Rs.  2,65,044:10:0;  the  total  of 
the  collections  making  the  sum  of  Rs.  46,26,695  :  10  :  o.' 

18.  From  which  it  appears  that  the  amount  (collected  during 
the  year  of  famine)  has  exceeded  the  receipts  in  the  preceding 
year  by  Rs.  4,25,747  :  9  :  3,  not  including  the  above  sum  received 
on  account  of  extra  collections. 

Section  II. — Representations  from  Native  Correspondence 
regarding  the  Famine  of  \iio. 

Maharajah  Shitab  Roy. — Received  ^h  January  1770. — 'Such 
is  the  scarcity  of  grain  in  this  province,  that  fifty  poor  wretches 
in  a  day  perish  with  famine  in  the  streets  of  Patna.'  The 
calamity  is  more  severely  felt  in  the  districts.  The  40,000 
maunds  of  rice  ordered  from  Dacca  has  not  arrived  for  the 
troops  at  Bankipore.  Urges  that  expedition  be  used  in  for- 
warding supplies  for  the  troops,  that  they  may  not  consume 
the  produce  of  the  province,  which  is  not  enough  for  the  in- 
habitants. 

From  Rujiif  Khan,  Foiijdar. — Received  April  13,  1770. — Has 
'  collected  what  the  country  produced,'  though  the  Khureef 
harvest  was  almost  ruined  by  the  drought;  but  'the  Rubbee 
(/.r.  spring  harvest)  proving  more  favourable,'  he  '  completed 
the  assignments.' 

From  Mahomed Reza  Cawn. — Received  \^th  May  1770. — 'To 
this  hour  I  have  laboured,  as  well  in  the  collections  as  in  every 
other  branch,  with  the  diligence  and  attention  of  the  most  fiiith- 
ful  well-wisher ;  and  as  far  as  the  fallible  nature  of  mankind 
would  admit,  I  have  been  guilty  of  no  omission.  But  as  there 
is  no  remedy  against  the  decrees  of  Providence,  how  shall  I 
describe  the  misery  of  the  country  from  the  excessive  droughts, 
the  dearness  and  scarcity  of  grain  hitherto,  but  now  a  total 
failure  ?  The  tanks  and  springs  are  dried  up,  and  water  grows 
daily  more  difficult  to  be  procured.  Added  to  these  calami- 
ties, frequent  and  dreadful  fires  have  happened  throughout  the 
country,  impoverished  whole  families,  and  destroyed  thousands 
of  lives.  The  small  stores  of  grain  which  yet  remained  at  Raje 
Gunge,  Dewan  Gungo,  and  other  i)laces  within  the   districts  of 


4o6  GREAT  FAMINE  OF  \-]']o,  [Appx.  B. 

Dinagepore  and  Poorneah,  have  been  consumed  by  fire.  Be- 
fore, each  day  furnished  accounts  of  the  fate  of  thousands  ;  but 
notwithstanding,  some  hopes  were  still  left  that  during  the  months 
of  April  and  May  we  should  be  blessed  with  rain,  and  the  poor 
ryotts  able  to  till  their  ground  ;  but  to  this  hour  not  a  drop  has 
fallen.  The  coarse  crop  which  is  gathered  at  this  season  is 
entirely  spoilt,  and  the  seed  for  the  August  crop  is  sown  during 
the  months  of  April  and  May.  It  is  now  the  middle  of  the 
latter  month,  and  they  have  not  begun  for  want  of  rain.  Even 
now,  by  the  help  of  a  few  showers,  something  might  be  done. 
If  the  scarcity  of  grain  and  want  of  rain  had  been  confined  to 
one  spot  of  the  province,  management  and  attention  might  find 
a  remedy ;  but  when  the  evil  is  total,  there  can  be  no  remedy 
but  in  the  mercy  of  God.  I  know  not  what  the  divine  will  has 
ordained  shall  befal  this  country.  The  calamity  is  past  the 
ingenuity  of  man.  The  Almighty  alone  can  deliver  us  from  such 
distress.' 

From  Mahomed  Reza  Ca^vn. — Received  2d  June  1770. — Not- 
withstanding the  droughts  which  have  prevailed,  he  has,  by 
exerting  his  utmost  abilities,  collected  the  revenue  of  1770,  'as 
closely  as  so  dreadful  a  season  would  admit.'  *  The  remainder,' 
he  adds,  '  cannot  be  collected  without  evident  ruin  to  the  ryotts, 
desolation  to  the  country,  and  a  heavy  loss  in  the  ensuing  year.' 
(Nevertheless,  we  have  seen  that  almost  the  whole  was  eventually 
collected.) 

Rajah  Tejchund  of  Burdwaun,  in  a  letter  dated  14th  May 
1 77 1,  states  that,  notwithstanding  'the  hardships  and  distresses 
that  have  befallen  the  ryots,  the  poor,  and  the  inhabitants  of  this 
country  from  the  famine,'  '  the  revenues  have  been  collected  with- 
out balance.' 

Section  III. — Abstracts  of  the  Coitsuliations  of  the 
Governme7it  of  Bengal. 

Consultation  of  the  22,d  OJober  1769. — Owing  to  the  scarcity,  a 
stock  of  grain  is  to  be  laid  in  for  the  army.  The  amount  required 
will  be  120,000  maunds  in  six  months.  This  must  be  provided 
from  countries  where  there  were  the  most  plentiful  crops,  and 
which  have  suffered  least  from  the  drought. 

The  Chief  and  Consul  of  Patna  to  provide  80,000  maunds,  of 
which  mds.  60,000  to  be  sent  to  the  city  for  Burrampore  and 


Appx.  B.]     DESCRIBED  BY  EYE-WITNESSES.         407 

Patna,  and  mds.  20,000  for  the  troops  at  the  Presidency.  (N.B. 
Patna,  from  which  this  supply  was  drawn,  was  one  of  the  most 
cruelly  stricken  districts.) 

Resident  at  the  Durbar  to  procure  mds.  40,000  from  Dinage- 
pore  and  Poomeah,  carefully  attending  to  the  wants  of  the  dis- 
tricts whence  they  draw  the  supplies.  (N.B.  Poorncah,  whence 
this  supply  was  drawn,  lost  '  above  one-third  '  of  its  inhabitants 
during  the  next  six  months.) 

Storehouses  to  be  built  at  the  city  and  Patna.  Cautions  as  to 
fire  and  other  accidents. 

Residents  at  the  Durbar,  and  supravisors  of  the  Behar  collec 
tions,  to  prevent  monopolies  of  grain.  Cultivation  of  pulse,  grain, 
barley,  and  grains  of  the  dry  season  to  be  encouraged,  and  every 
means  to  be  taken  which  can  be  thought  of  to  supply  the  want 
of  rice. 

A  committee  of  the  Collector- General,  the  Buxey,  and  Ze- 
mindar, to  lay  down  regulations  for  the  prevention  of  monopoly 
and  the  relief  of  the  inhabitants. 

Consultation  of  the  \i,th  November  1769. — The  Dacca  chief 
and  council  request  Rs.  60,000.  Sanctioned,  and  the  deputation 
of  Mr.  Sumner  into  Barkergunj  to  buy  grain  approved. 

Consultation  of  the  i^th  November  1769. — Arrangements  were 
made  to  obtain  labour  in  the  fort  in  construction  at  Calcutta,  by 
supplying  the  workmen  with  grain  at  cheap  rates.  Difficulties 
were  said  to  be  thrown  in  the  way  by  the  dealers. 

19,000  maunds  were  in  store  (or  less  than  a  single  brigade's 
consumption  during  three  months).  Further  supplies  were  expected 
from  different  parts  of  the  country.  It  was  proposed  to  supply  a 
seer  of  rice  a-day  a-head  to  persons  labouring  on  the  fortifications, 
at  cost  price  and  charges,  the  difference  in  their  favour  to  be  paid 
them  in  cowries  :  thus  they  would  get  it  40  per  cent,  cheaper  than 
in  the  Bazaar.  The  scarcity  is  likely  to  continue  for  eight  months, 
increasing  in  intensity.  Mds.  49,000  might  be  required  for  Sooo 
coolies :  so  much  besides  that  in  store  had  been  ordered,  and 
more  supplies  can  be  drawn  from  Chittagong. 

The  Buxey  to  have  always  mds.  20,000  in  store  for  the  use  of 
the  garrison.  Fort  St.  George  may  be  in  condition  now  to  supply 
rice.  Fort  Marlborough  cannot  be  supplied  from  Bengal.  Chit- 
tagong must  be  pressed  for  further  supplies.  Fort  St.  George 
was  written  to  (but  in  fact  it  wns  Bengal  that  had  sent  supplies 


4oS  GREAT  FAMINE  OF  1770,  [Ai>px.  B 

to    Madras,    not    Madras    to    I'cngal,   until    the   close    of  the 
f^iminc). 

ConstiUation  of  iJie  20th  November  1769. — Representation  of 
the  Raja  of  Burdwaun.  Drought  and  dearness  of  grain.  Crop 
parched,  and  cut  up  for  fodder  for  the  cattle.  Tanks  dry. 
Water  insufficient  for  the  inhabitants.  Rubbee  harvest  backward, 
and  without  rain  will  be  destroyed.  Ryuts  deserting  in  large 
bodies. 

Resident  at  the  Durbar  states  that  relief  has  been  obtained 
from  the  prohibition  of  monopoly  \  but  there  is  an  alarming 
prospect  of  the  province  becoming  desolate  in  the  ensuing  season, 
from  flight  of  the  ryuts  and  want  of  cultivation.  This  communi- 
cation has  been  deferred  for  fear  of  causing  alarm  ;  but  duty  and 
humanity  require  that  the  distresses  of  the  country  be  brought  to 
notice.  Sotiih,  they  were  blessed  with  rain  ;  but  northward  the 
rice  crop  has  been  in  some  places  totally  lost,  and  the  greatest 
part  of  it  in  others.  Rivers  dry,  and  tanks  drained.  The  ryuts 
cannot  cultivate  cotton,  mulberry,  grain,  pease,  barley,  tobacco, 
or  beht  root.  Hence  the  flight  of  ryuts  to  become  day-labourers 
where  they  can  earn  a  subsistence.  Unless  a  remedy  can  be 
found,  this  must  result  in  loss  of  revenue. 

Consnliaiion  of  the  6th  December  1769. — The  collections  are 
equal  to  those  of  former  years,  notwithstanding  the  drought ;  but 
this  cannot  be  expected  to  continue.  The  Resident  expects  to 
send  down  2600  coolies.  500  have  been  engaged  for  six  months, 
but  at  high  rates  of  wages. 

Consultation  of  the  12th  December  1769, — Chief  and  council  of 
Chittagong  promise  every  eftbrt  to  relieve  the  scarcity. 

Consultation  of  the  \Wi  January  1770. — Fort  St.  George  pro- 
mises to  supply  Fort  Marlboro  with  grain,  if  not  obtained  direct 
from  the  IMalabar  coast.  They  have  promise  of  a  plentiful  crop 
from  the  late  rains. 

Consultation  of  the  i2,fh  February  1770. — Resident  at  th& 
Durbar  proposes  to  distribute  rice  at  six  places  at  the  rate  of  half 
a  seer  a-day  for  each  person.  Europeans  and  their  gomashtas 
are  forestalling.  They  should  be  prohibited  purchasing  till  after 
next  August  in  the  provinces  which  supply  the  city.  The  eastern 
districts  will  supply  Calcutta.  Orders  are  issued  for  40,000 
niaunds  of  rice  for  the  troops  at  Berhampore. 

Consultation  of  the  26th  February  1770. — Matters  are  left  to 


Appx.  B.]     DESCRIBED  BY  EYE-WITNESSES.         409 

the  Resident's  'prudence  and  impartiality,*  sanctioning  remissions 
repayable  in  preference  to  abatement  of  revenue  and  tuccavee. 

Consultation  of  the  27M  March  1770. — The  proposed  supplies 
of  rice  not  arrived  from  Backergunye, 

Consultation  of  the  T^d  April  1770. — The  Buxey  reports  mds. 
33,913  have  arrived  from  Backergunge.  Mds.  25,657  of  the 
August  crop  (indifferent  in  quality)  have  been  ordered  to  be  sold, 
but  in  small  parcels. 

Consultation  of  the  yl  April  1770. — At  the  instance  of  Messrs. 
Russell,  Floyer,  and  Hare  (3d  April  1770),  fifty  maunds  of  rice 
per  day,  in  addition  to  the  merchants'  assistance,  have  been 
ordered  to  be  distributed  in  charity  in  Calcutta,  and  twenty  to 
twenty-five  maunds  a-day  in  Burdwaun. 

Consultation  of  the  i/^th  August  1770. — The  Council  refuse  any 
assistance  to  the  French  colony  at  Chandemagore,  on  the  ground 
that  they  have  not  sufficient  for  a  day's  consumption  in  stock. 

Consultation  of  the  ic)th  September  1770. — Deficiency  of  the 
Maldah  investment,  in  consequence  of  the  severe  drought  which 
has  prevailed  there,  which  has  swept  away  many  of  the  inhabit- 
ants, and  so  enfeebled  those  that  remain,  that  there  is  not  half 
the  quantity  of  cloths  prepared  this  year  as  the  last. 

Consultation  of  the  2zd  October  1770. — Difficulty  with  the 
French  at  Lushypore,  in  consequence  of  an  endeavour  to  smuggle 
out  a  small  quantity  of  rice. 

Consultation  of  the  \i,th  November  1770. — '  The  famine  having 
now  entirely  ceased,  and  there  being  not  only  a  great  abundance, 
but  also  a  prospect  of  a  most  plentiful  harvest, — 

'  Agreed — That  the  embargo  on  rice  be  taken  off,  and  that  a 
publication  be  issued  to  that  purpose.' 

SiiCTiON  IV. — Abstracts  of  Extracts  from  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Provincial  Council  of  Moors heda bad. 

Consultation  of  the  21th  September  1770. — The  Nawab  should 
be  supported  vigorously  in  his  collections  from  the  Bhadoon 
(September)  harvest,  that  tliere  may  be  no  loss,  as  might  be  ap- 
prehended in  the  present  impoverished  state  of  the  country. 

Consultation  of  the  \th  October  1770. — Letter  from  Mr.  Crose. 
Supravisor  of  Behar,  dated  Govindgunge,  26th  September  1770  : 
— Notwithstanding  rain  had  fallen,  the  greatest  part  of  the  land  is 
uncullivated,  in  consequence  of  ryuts  absconding  nnd  le;i\ing  only 


4IO  GREAT  FAMINE  OF  iTTo,  [Appx.  B. 

a  dissatisfied  portion  of  the  population.  Paddy  flourishes,  and 
the  harvest  would  have  been  plentiful  if  cultivation  had  pro- 
ceeded. 

Letter  from  the  Supravisor  of  Rungpore, dated  26th  September: 
— The  distresses  of  the  poor  continue  very  great.  A  number  of 
miserable  objects  daily  apply  for  relief.  Five  rupees'  worth  of 
rice  are  daily  distributed  amongst  the  most  needy.  Ten  rupees' 
worth  had  been  previously  distributed.  The  Provincial  Council 
sanctions  this  expenditure.  [Ten  shiUings  a-day  among  400,000 
starving  beings  !] 

Consultation  ofihe\']th  October  1770. — Mr.  Ducarel,  Supravisor 
of  Poorneah,  in  a  letter  dated  loth  October  177 1,  complains  of 
Sepoys  being  sent  by  Colonel  Champion  to  purchase  grain  for 
the  troops  at  Monghyr,  although  exportation  from  his  district  is 
prohibited.  At  the  present  time  of  distress  and  failure  of  the 
August  crops,  he  hopes  that  the  supplies  for  Monghyr  may  be 
obtained  in  the  ordinary  way  through  the  ordinary  native  mer- 
chants, not  by  armed  troops. 

Consultation  of  the  2T,d  October  1770. — Mr.  Higginson,  Supra- 
visor of  Beerbhoom,  in  a  letter  dated  iSth  October  1770,  reports 
that  the  lands  managed  by  Shickdars  are  heavily  in  balance. 
They  are  represented  to  be  *  in  such  a  barren  and  depopulated 
state,  from  the  bad  eftects  of  the  famine,'  as  to  preclude  the  hope 
of  finding  farmers  ;  nevertheless,  he  expects  an  increase  in  the 
collections,  and  to  make  a  considerable  one  next  year. 

Comuitation  of  the  6th  November  1770. — In  the  late  famine, 
Calcutta  was  well  supplied  with,  grain  at  a  time  when  the  places 
where  it  was  brought  from  were  almost  destitute.  The  rate  of 
wages — six  or  eight  annas  a-month  for  a  labourer  {i.e.  besides 
a  certain  allowance  of  food) — '  is  calculated  for  a  time  when  rice 
is  at  two  or  three  maunds  for  a  rupee.'  *  If  they  cannot  procure 
their  subsistence  at  an  adequate  price,  they  and  their  families 
either  go  off  to  other  countries,  where  they  have  higher  wages  or 
provisions  cheaper ;'  and  '  if  the  exportation  of  grain  is  now 
made  general,'  gomashtas  and  merchants  will  '  buy  it  up  at  a 
price  at  which  the  working  people  cannot  purchase  it  even  for 
their  subsistence.' — Letter  from  the  Supravisor  of  Foorneah. 

Consultation  of  the  26th  November  1770. — The  Naib  Diwan 
complains  of  difficulties  in  providing  the  silk  investment.  From 
the  calamities  of  the  season  and  extraordinary  famine,  many  of 


Appx.  B.]     described  BY  EYE-  WITNESSES.        4 1 1 

the  ryuts  are  dead  for  want  of  subsistence,  many  houses  are 
depopulated,  and  the  remaining  inhabitants  are  utterly  incapable 
of  industry  or  exerting  themselves  to  cultivate.  Mr.  Harwood, 
Supravisor  of  Raj  Mahal,  when  sending  the  abstract  Bundobust 
for  the  current  year,  alludes  to  the  '  impoverished,  ruined,  and 
miserable  state '  of  the  districts  under  his  management. 

Consultation  of  the  28/"//  November  1770.  —  Rajah  Kusum 
Chund  of  Nuddeah  reports  the  '  death  and  desertion  of  many  of 
the  ryots'  owing  to  the  famine. 

Consultation  of  the  i2,th  December  1770, — Mr.  Ducarel,  Supra- 
visor of  Poorneah,  reporting  on  the  present  settlement  for  three 
years  at  an  increase,  says  :  '  Had  I  known  of  the  famine,  and 
mortality  of  the  inhabitants  which  followed,  I  never  would  have 
made  a  Bundobust  (i.e.  arrangement)  for  three  years,  or  with  an 
increase.'  Of  four  of  the  Purgunnahs,  after  personal  visitation,  he 
says,  that  '  there  having  been  little  or  no  harvest,  the  people  either 
perished  or  went  elsewhere  for  subsistence ;  and  they  {i.e.  the 
lands)  were  really  sunk  in  one  year  almost  half  their  value  ;  on 
which  point  I  should  not  have  been  satisfied  if  I  had  not  received 
every  proof  that  the  closest  examination  could  give  me.  They 
are  now  really  lying  waste  for  want  of  inhabitants,  particularly 
liuvelee  Poorneah,  which  contained  more  than  1000  villages; 
and  it  is  the  deficiency  which  takes  place  here  that  renders  the 
Poorneah  revenue  less  this  year  than  heretofore.' 

Further  on,  Mr.  Ducarel  adds  as  follows  : — 

'The  Gunge,  called  Alumgunge,  the  principal  receipts  of  which 
depended  on  the  consumption  of  grain  in  the  town,  has  declined 
greatly  by  reason  of  the  considerable  decrease  of  inhabitants 
during  the  last  famine,  a  great  part  of  the  town  having  become 
a  jungle,  and  literally  a  refuge  for  wild  beasts. 

'  In  respect  to  the  improvement  of  the  country,  I  must,  in 
answer,  premise  that,  according  to  the  attested  accounts  I  have 
received  from  the  Pergunnahs,  there  have  perished  near  two 
lacks  {i.e.  200,000)  of  people  in  this  district.  Except  the  cftects 
of  this  loss  (be  it  more  or  less),  I  can  safely  give  it  as  my  opinion 
that  the  country  is  improving.' 

Consultation  of  the  20th  December  1770. — Letter  from  Mr. 
Reed  of  Moorshedabad  states  that  in  Dacca,  Poorneah,  and 
Hooghly,  collections  are  regularly  kept  up,  and  some  of  them 
paid  in  advance  !     The  rest  of  the  supravisors  give  reason  to 


4 1 2  GREA  T  FA  MINE  Ci^  1 7  7  o,  [A  v  px.  B. 

expect  that  the  revenue  of  the  province  in  general  will  be  duly 
collected,  '  excepting  in  some  icw  places.' 

Consultation  of  the  i^ih  December  1770.  —  The  rice  from 
Barkergunge,  Mr.  Becher  observed,  arrived  at  a  most  critical 
time  ;  and  '  the  Company  has  reaped  a  considerable  benefit  by  a 
measure  which  proved  a  general  relief  to  the  immediate  dependants 
on  the  English  here,  and  tended  to  preserve  order  and  regularity  ;* 
otherwise,  '  the  greatest  confusion  must  have  ensued.' 

Distribution  of  rice  amongst  the  miserable  objects  in  and 
near  the  city  was  sanctioned  by  the  committee  to  the  amount  of 
Rs.  87,000  ;  Rs.  40,000  paid  by  the  Company,  and  Rs.  47,000 
by  the  Nawab.  The  charge  was  exceeded.  '  The  famine  and 
its  dreadful  consequences  increased  considerably  as  the  season 
advanced  ;  rice  rose  from  ten  to  three  seers  per  rupee ;  and 
neither  humanity  nor  policy  would  admit  of  a  stop  being  put  to 
the  distribution  earlier  than  it  was  done.  It  is  for  consideration 
whether  the  Nawab  and  ministers  shall  be  called  on  for  their 
proportion  of  the  excess.'  '  These  gentlemen,  independent  of 
this  distribution,  helped  to  preserve  the  lives  of  many  by  their 
charitable  donations,  as  I  believe  did  every  man  of  property  in 
these  parts  ;  indeed,  a  man  must  have  had  a  heart  of  stone  that 
had  the  ability. and  would  have  refused  his  mite  for  the  relief  of 
such  miserable  objects  as  constantly  presented  themselves  to  our 
view.'  '  The  charge  was  indispensable,  and  the  Company  will 
benefit  by  the  preservation  of  the  nmiibers  who  have  survived 
owing  to  the  distribution  of  the  rice.' 

Consultation  of  the  2,'^  st  December  1770. — Mr.  Rous,  Supravisor 
of  Rajshie,  reports  :  *  I  cannot  give,'  he  adds,  '  a  more  striking 
proof  of  the  deficiency  of  the  August  harvest,  than  by  mentioning 
a  circumstance  probably  never  before  known,  that  the  consump- 
tion of  grain  in  these  parts  is  now  supplied  by  importation  from 
the  northern  districts  and  the  precincts  of  Moorshedabad  ;  and 
that  at  Nahore,  situate  in  the  heart  of  a  rice  country,  grain  sells 
at  18  seers  per  rupee,  whilst  at  Moorshedabad  it  is  above  30 
seers  of  the  same  species  of  weight.' 

Consultation  of  the  4,th  February  lyjT. — The  Rajah  Byjnath 
of  Dinagepore  implores  some  remission  on  account  of  the  de- 
population and  ruined  state  of  his  district  which  has  ensued  from 
famine  ;  represents  that  many  villages  are  wholly  deserted,  and 
a  great  part  of  the  land  fallen  waste  for  want  of  seed  and  imple- 


Appx.  B.]     described  BY  E YE- WITNESSES.        4 1 3 

merits  of  cultivation.  Out  of  a  total  demand  of  Rs.  13,70,932, 
as  much  as  Rs.  12,00,000  had  been  collected  ;  and  the  Board 
now  orders  that  if  the  rajah  does  not  '  heartily  co-operate  in 
answering '  their  expectations  of  the  revenue  in  full,  he  will  be  de- 
prived of  his  territory,  and  summoned  before  them  as  a  defliulter. 

Consultation  of  the  2d,t/i.  February  177 1. — The  Supravisor  of 
Beerbhoom,  Mr.  Higginson,  reports:  'I  have  now  to  represent 
to  you,  gentlemen,  the  bad  consequences  that  will  attend  my 
enforcing  the  collections  of  last  year's  balances  from  the  remaining 
poor  ryotts  of  these  districts  who  have  so  considerably  suffered 
from  the  late  famine,  that  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  them  are 
rendered  utterly  incapable  of  paying  them.  By  obliging  them  to 
sell  their  cattle  and  utensils  for  agriculture,  a  small  proportion 
might  be  recovered  ;  but  this  would  certainly  be  the  means  of 
their  deserting  the  province,  and  preventing  the  cultivation  for 
next  year,  which  would  be  much  more  fatal  to  the  revenue  of  the 
country  than  the  whole  loss  of  the  balances.  In  Bissenpore,  the 
sum  of  Rs.  1067  was  collected  on  this  account  before  I  received 
charge  of  the  province,  and  those  ryuts  from  whom  it  was  received 
have  fled  the  country.  The  cause  of  many  of  these  balances  for 
last  year  have  arisen  in  a  great  measure  from  the  corrupt  manage- 
ment of  aumils  and  black  collectors  (through  whom  we  then 
administered  the  country),  and  in  Bissenpore  it  was  particularly 
as  follows  : — It  was  the  custom  for  the  r}-uts  to  give  paddy  for 
the  rents  of  the  ground  they  cultivated  ;  but  last  year,  their  crop 
being  entirely  spoilt  for  want  of  the  usual  rains,  they  had  no 
paddy  to  pay.  The  collector,  taking  advantage  of  this,  forced 
them  to  settle  their  accounts  with  him  at  the  rate  of  three  rupees 
each  measure,  whereas  the  price  of  any  former  years  was  only 
one  rupee  each  measure.  This  the  ryuts  not  being  able  to  comply 
with,  many  of  them  deserted  the  province,  and  those  that  re- 
mained were  entirely  ruined".  And  I  now  refer  it  to  you,  gentle- 
men, to  know  in  what  manner  I  am  to  recover  these  balances, 
though  in  the  meantime  I  shall  endeavour  to  collect  all  I  can 
from  those  who  are  able  to  pay,  but  I  fear  they  will  be  very  few.' 

Mr.  Higginson  had  visited  the  eastern  Pergunnahs,  those 
chiefly  afflicted. 

'  These,'  he  says,  *  are  all  situated  on  the  easternmost  side  of 
this  province,  which  sufler  much  more  considerably  than  any 
other  part,  on  account  of  there  being  so  little  rain  there  last  year 


414  GREAT  FAMINE  OF  iT]o,  [Appx.  B 

in  comparison  with  the  rest  of  the  Pergunnahs.  Truly  concerned 
am  I  to  acquaint  you  that  the  bad  effects  of  the  last  famine  appear 
in  these  places  beyond  description  dreadful.  Many  hundreds  of 
villages  are  entirely  depopulated  ;  and  even  in  the  large  towns 
there  are  not  a  fourth  part  of  the  houses  inhabited.  For  want  o 
ryuts  to  cultivate  the  ground,  there  are  immense  tracts  of  a  fine 
open  country  which  remain  wholly  waste  and  unimproved.  The 
ryuts  in  general  of  these  Pergunnahs  have  entreated  me  to  relieve 
them  from  the  oppression  of  sigdars,  and  to  let  out  their  lands  to 
farmers  in  the  same  manner  as  in  the  other  parts  of  the  province, 
when  they  promise  to  set  heartily  to  work  on  the  cultivation, 
and  to  remain  in  their  present  habitations.  The  advantage  of 
beginning  this  as  early  in  the  season  as  possible,  must  appear 
obvious  to  you,  as  by  far  the  greatest  number  of  the  ryuts  are  not 
able  to  cultivate  their  lands  without  the  assistance  of  Tuccavee, 
which  can  only  be  given  to  farmers  who,  for  their  own  interests, 
will  advance  the  money  to  encourage  their  ryuts.' 

The  Council  replied : 

'  Though  we  can  by  no  means  recede  from  the  demands  for 
Moofussil  balances  due  from  your  districts,  yet  we  cannot  but 
agree  with  you  in  the  propriety  of  suspending  them  for  the 
present,  as  continuing  to  harass  the  ryuts  for  them  at  the  present 
season  would  be  attended  with  prejudice  to  the  ensuing  year's 
cultivation  and  collections.  Should  the  approaching  year,  how- 
ever, prove  a  prosperous  one,  Ave  flatter  ourselves  an  adjustment 
might  be  made  for  the  recovery  of  these  balances  ;  and  it  is 
an  object  that  we  must  recommend  to  your  attention  in  that 
event.' 

Consultation  of  the  ist  April  1771. — The  Supravisor  of 
Nuddea  begs  an  advance  of  ^^4000  to  enable  the  cultivators 
to  recommence  tillage.  The  council  sanction  only  ;£^25oo,  and 
make  the  revenue-farmers  responsible  for  its  repayment. 

Consultation  of  the  i^th  April  iTji. — Mr.  Rous,  Supravisor 
of  Rajshie,  reports :  '  I  receive  advices  from  the  Pergunnahs  ot 
the  frequent  firing  of  villages  by  people  whose  distress  drives 
them  to  such  acts  of  despair  and  villany.  Numbers  of  r>'uts, 
who  have  hidierto  borne  the  first  of  characters  amongst  their 
neighbours,  pursue  this  last  desperate  resource  to  procure  them- 
selves a  subsistence.' 


Appx.  B.J     DESCRIBED  BY  EYE- WITNESSES.        4 1 5 

Section  V. — Selections  from  the  Select  Committee,  the  Secret 
Consultations,  and  Committee  of  Rrceinie. 

Consultation  of  the  Cfth  February  1769. — Mr.  Becher,  resident 
of  the  Durbar,  reports  that  the  '  revenues  were  never  so  closely 
collected  before.' 

Consultation  of  the  16th  At/gust  1769. — Mr.  Rumbold,  chief  of 
Bahar,  after  several  letters  announcing  drought  and  foreboding 
scarcity,  now  reports  that  plentiful  showers  have  fallen,  and  is 
hopeful  that  want  and  hunger  may  yet  be  relieved. 

Consultations  from  this  date  to  end  of  year  refer  to  many 
letters  from  the  local  ofBcers  complaining  of  want  of  rain,  appre- 
hending great  distress  and  a  falling  off  of  the  revenues,  and 
suggesting  remissions  of  the  land-tax,  and  permission  to  pay  the 
Government  demands  wholly  or  partly  in  grain. 

Consultation  of  the  2^th  January  1770. — Mr.  Alexander,  Supra- 
visor  of  Bahar,  has  reported  that  it  is  not  to  '  distant  evil,'  but  to 
'the  extremity  of  immediate  distress,'  that  a  remedy  must  be 
applied  ;  that  '  each  day  lost  in  deliberation  adds  to  the  calamity ;' 
that  he  has  issued  an  order  to  take  twenty-five  seers  of  rice  out 
of  every  forty  for  the  Government,  leaving  fifteen  for  the  ryut, — 
sugar-cane,  cotton,  and  opium  to  pay,  according  to  custom. 

Mr.  Alexander  further  proposed  to  make  a  circuit  of  the 
province  with  Raja  Shitab  Roy.  He  says:  'To  judge  from 
the  city  of  Patna,  the  interior  of  the  country  must  be  in  a 
deplorable  condition.  From  fifty  to  sixty  people  have  died  of 
absolute  hunger  on  the  streets  every  day  for  these  ten  days  past.' 
Above  8000  beggars  were  still  in  the  place ;  and  if  the  rajah 
were  to  attempt  to  relieve  them  in  a  public  manner,  the  number 
would  still  increase  from  every  village  about  Patna.  For  those 
near  his  own  habitation  he  serves  out  fifty  rupees'  worth  of  rice 
every  day  at  the  Company's  expense,  and  will  continue  to  do  so 
till  they  are  relieved,  or  he  receives  orders  to  the  contrary.  The 
rajah  proposed  to  allot  about  two  lakhs  of  rupees  for  the  relief 
and  assistance  of  the  poor,  but  Mr.  Alexander  could  not  sanction 
this  without  permission. 

The  council  recommend  caution  in  the  receipt  of  the  revenue 
in  kind,  and  Mr.  Alexander  was  instructed  to  adopt  the  plan 
only  to  a  limited  extent. 

Consultation  of  the  2Sth  April  1770. — The  depopulation  in  the 


41 6  GREAT  FAMINE  OF  iTio,  [Appx.  B. 

interior  part  of  the  country  is  more  rapid  than  will  be  imagined 
by  any  person  who  has  not  been  witness  to  it ;  and  such  is  the 
disposition  of  the  people,  that  they  seem  rather  inclined  to  sub- 
mit to  death  tlian  extricate  themselves  from  misery  and  hunger 
by  industry  and  labour.  I  wished  to  give  every  possible  en- 
couragement to  cultivation,  and  with  this  view  Perwannahs  were 
issued  out,  and  public  notice  everywhere  given  that  no  rent 
should  be  collected  on  the  lands  producing  a  particular  kind  of 
grain  called  Arzun  for  the  space  of  six  months.  This  I  under- 
stand to  be  a  very  coarse  seed,  and  never  yields  any  considerable 
revenue ;  in  plentiful  seasons  it  is  usually  at  the  price  of  five 
maunds  for  a  rupee. 

The  miseries  of  the  poor  at  this  place  increase  in  such  a 
manner,  that  no  less  than  150  have  died  in  a  day  in  Patna.  In 
consequence  of  this,  and  the  latitude  you  have  given  me,  I 
disburse  on  the  Company's  account  daily  380  sonat  rupees, — 
100  of  which  is  disbursed  by  the  rajah,  80  by  Messrs.  Stephenson, 
Droz,  and  Law,  and  150  by  myself.  I  am  confident  the  whole 
is  laid  out  with  the  utmost  economy.  The  officers  at  Dinapore, 
by  a  private  subscription,  feed  a  large  number,  and  the  French 
and  Dutch  give  as  largely  as  can  be  expected  from  their  small 
factories. 

Consultation  of  the  20th  Ap-il  1770. — 'The  districts  that  have 
more  particularly  suffered  from  the  unfavourableness  of  the 
season  are  Poorneah,  Rajmahl,  Beerbhoom,  and  a  part  of  Raje- 
shahye;  indeed,  the  only  districts  under  this  department  from 
which  complaints  have  not  come  of  the  want  of  rain  are  Dacca, 
and  those  low  countries  that  are  situate  to  the  eastward,  where 
the  rivers  have  overflown  and  fertilized  the  lands  even  this 
remarkable  dry  season.' 

Bhangulfore  had  particularly  suftered  from  drought,  which, 
added  to  other  causes,  has  reduced  this  fine  country  to  a  miserable 
state.     Lenient  revenue  arrangements  are  suggested. 

The  condition  of  Beerbhoom  and  its  inhabitants  is  alluded  to 
as  '  miserable,  almost  exceeding  description.'  The  continuance 
of  the  drought  is  deplored  ;  and  the  condition  of  the  country  is 
thus  summed  up  by  Mr.  Becher : — 

'  If  it  should  please  God  to  continue  the  present  drought  much 
longer,  all  endeavour  on  your  part  (the  Select  Committee),  on 
that  of  the  Ministers,  and  on  mine,  must  be  vain.     Rain  which 


Appx.  C]     described  BY  EYE-  WITNESSES.         4 1 7 

fell  in  February  enabled  the  ryots  to  plough  the  ground,  and 
they  now  require  a  further  quantity  in  order  to  turn  the  earth 
and  sow  their  crops.  If  they  obtain  this  blessing  soon,  there 
will  be  a  fair  prospect  for  their  next  crops ;  if  not,  this  will  be  a 
most  miserable  country.  Indeed,  the  Company  can  expect  but 
small  revenues  next  year.  The  distress  of  the  inhabitants  at 
present  does  not  only  proceed  from  scarcity  of  provisions  and 
want  of  rain  to  cultivate  their  lands,  but  in  many  parts  they  are 
without  water  to  drink.' 

Consultation  of  the  z'ith  April  1770. — Foujdar  of  Poorneah, 
Mahomed  Ala  Khan. 

*  Hardly  a  day  passes  without  thirty  or  forty  people  dying.' 
'  Multitudes  already  have,  and  continue  to  perish  of  hunger.' 
Seed  grain  has  been  sold  for  food,  and  cattle  and  agricultural 
utensils.  Children  offered  for  sale,  and  no  buyers.  Mahomed 
Ali  expresses  an  official,  but  not  very  creditable,  '  blindness 
to  distress '  and  '  deafness  to  lamentation,'  in  the  interests  of 
the  Sircar,  i.e.  the  Government.  The  Aumil  of  Bishenpore, 
Nobkishwar,  testifies  that — 

'  From  excessive  drought,  and  failure  of  the  supply  from  lakes 
and  tanks,  the  fields  of  rice,  parched  by  the  heat  of  the  sun, 
are  become  like  fields  of  dried  straw.' 

The  Aumil  of  Jessore,  Ujagger  Mull,  reports  no  rain  up  to 
nor  through  Bhadoor.  The  j)eople  are  bringing  in  the  leaves  of 
trees  from  the  jungles  for  food  ;  and  they  ofter  to  sell  their  sons 
and  daughters.     Many  of  the  ryots  are  running  away. 

The  Foujdar  of  Rajmahal,  Pertab  Roy,  makes  a  similar  state- 
ment. Ploughs  and  oxen  are  offered  for  revenue,  and  clamours 
interrupt  the  business  of  the  Cutcherry. 

Mr.  Ducarel  reports  that  the  miseries  of  the  town  of  Poorneah 
are  not  less  shocking  than  those  of  the  rural  parts.  Pestilence 
must  be  guarded  against  by  the  removal  of  the  dead  bodies. 
Upwards  of  1000  were  buried  in  three  days  after  his  arrival. 
One  half  the  cultivators  and  payers  of  revenue  will  perish  with 
hunger,  whilst  those  able  to  purchase  a  subsistence  will  pay  at 
least  500  per  cent,  advance  in  the  price  of  food.  He  considers 
that,  on  the  high  and  sandy  soils,  more  than  half  the  ryots  are  dead. 
Mr.  Hanc'ooti,  Rajmahal,  reports  that  the  zameendars  arc 
ruined,  the  lands  not  having  yielded  half  produce  for  the  last 
twelve  months. 

VOL.  I.  2  D 


41 8  GREAT  FAMINE  OF  iTTo,  [Appx.  B. 

In  a  subsequent  letter,  Mr.  Harwood  (28th  March  1770), 
alluding  to  the  humanity  of  sanctioning  abatements,  which  had 
been  recently  allowed,  says  : 

'  Had  the  misery  of  the  inhabitants  been  reportefl  to  you 
sooner,  and  had  the  ryots  received  this  ease  at  the  proper  time, 
your  beneficent  intentions  would  have  been  fully  answered,  and 
many  thousands  who  are  now  reduced  to  poverty  might  have 
enjoyed  ease,  if  not  affluence.  But,  from  motives  of  false  policy 
and  self-interest,  the  (native)  collectors  in  the  different  parts,  during 
this  calamitous  season,  have  pressed  so  very  hard  upon  the  ryots 
to  oblige  them  to  make  good  their  engagements  to  Government, 
that  their  total  ruin  has  invariably  followed.'  Mr.  Harwood  was 
hopeful,  as  grain  grows  '  neither  more  scarce  nor  dear,'  that  '  the 
calamity  was  almost  at  an  end.' 

Consultation  of  the  T,d  May  1 770. — M?-.  Alexander  reports  from 
Patna  that  the  famine  increases,  and  leads  to  apprehensions  of 
most  fatal  consequences.  The  consumption  of  the  army  presses  on 
the  inhabitants. 

'  Your  neighbours,'  the  committee  conclude  in  reply,  '  enjoy- 
ing the  blessing  of  almost  a  plentiful  season,  whilst  you  are 
suffering  the  evils  of  death  and  famine,  exhibits  but  an  unpleasant 
contrast,  and  rather  wounds  the  credit  of  English  policy.  We 
have  no  doubt  of  your  vigilance  and  capacity ;  but  the  Govern- 
ment of  this  country  has  provided  so  very  imperfectly  for  the 
security  of  the  poor,  that,  unless  very  extraordinary  efforts  are 
made  to  prevent  it,  these  calamities  never  fail  to  occasion  the 
grossest  abuses.' 

Consultation  of  the  qth  June  1770. — The  Resident  at  the 
Durbar  reports  :  '  The  scene  of  misery  that  intervened,  and  still 
continues,  shocks  humanity  too  much  to  bear  description.  Cer- 
tain it  is,  that  in  se\eral  parts  the  living  have  fed  on  the  dead, 
and  the  number  that  has  perished  in  those  provinces  that  have 
most  suffered  is  calculated  to  have  been,  within  these  few  months, 
as  six  is  to  sixteen  of  the  whole  inhabitants.' 

Consultation  of  tJu  21st  June  1770. — The  Resident  at  the 
Durbar  reports  that  the  misery  and  distress  increase  daily.  Rice 
sells  at  6  and  7  seers  per  rupee  ;  and  there  have  been  several 
days  lately  when  not  a  grain  was  to  be  purchased.  Many  even 
of  the  Company's  immediate  dependents  must  have  been  starved 
but  for  the  supplies  from  Bakergunge.      Plenty  of  rain  now,  but 


Appx.  B.]       described  BY  E YE- WITNESSES.       4 1 9 

it  is  feared  too  much.  This  apprehension  and  reduced  cultiva- 
tion, owing  to  the  want  of  people,  cattle,  and  even  seed,  does  not 
afford  a  very  fair  prospect  for  the  ensuing  collections. 

Consultation  of  the  xgth  July  1770. — The  Resident  at  the 
Durbar  reports  :  '  Previous  representations '  are  '  faint  in  com- 
parison to  the  miseries  now  endured.  Within  30  miles  round  the 
city,  rice  sells  at  only  3  seers  for  a  rupee  ;  other  grain  in  propor- 
tion ;  and  even  at  those  exorbitant  prices  there  is  not  nearly 
sufficient  for  the  daily  supply  of  half  the  inhabitants,  so  that  in 
the  city  of  Moorshedabad  alone  it  is  calculated  tliat  more  than 
five  hundred  are  starved  daily,  and  in  the  villages  and  country 
adjacent  the  numbers  said  to  perish  exceed  belief  '  Every 
endeavour  of  the  (native)  Ministers  and  myself  has  been  exerted 
to  lessen  this  dreadful  calamity.  The  prospect  of  the  approach- 
ing crop  is  favourable,  and  we  have  the  comfort  to  know  that 
the  distress  of  the  inhabitants  to  the  northward  and  eastward  of 
us  is  greatly  relieved  from  what  they  have  before  suffered.  In 
one  month  we  may  expect  relief  from  our  present  distresses  from 
the  new  harvest,  if  people  survive  to  gather  it  in  ;  but  the  numbers 
that  I  am  sensible  must  perish  in  that  interval,  and  those  that  I 
see  dying  around  me,  greatly  affect  my  feelings  and  humanity  as 
a  man,  and  make  me,  as  a  servant  of  the  Company,  apprehensive 
of  the  consequences  that  may  ensue  to  the  revenues.' 

Secret  Consultations  of  the  ist  February  1771 — N'ote  by  the 
Committee. — '  The  sale  of  Bakergunge  rice  produced  a  profit  of 
Rs.  67,593,  which,  deducted  from  Rs.  124,806,  the  advances 
from  the  Moorshedabad  Treasury,  leaves  Rs.  59,611  expended  by 
the  Company,  or  Rs.  16,911  only  beyond  the  original  subscrip- 
tion. The  Nawab's  first  subscription  exceeded  that  of  the  Com- 
pany. He  and  his  Ministers  have  acted  liberally.  They  should 
not  be  called  on  for  more.' 

Mr.  Becher,  resident  at  the  Durbar,  reports  (24th  Dec.  1770): 
— '  This  rice  came  at  a  most  critical  time,  and  I  have  the  satisfac- 
tion to  find  that  the  Company  has  reaped  considerable  benefit  {i.e. 
a  profit  of  nearly  jCtooo)  by  a  measure  which  provided  general 
relief  to  the  ivimediate  dependents  on  the  En^i^lish  here,  and  tended 
to  preser\e  order  and  regularity  in  the  military  corps  at  a  time 
of  such  scarcity  and  distress,  that  I  am  convinced,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  supplies  of  rice  I  was  enabled  to  issue  fi-om  the  store,  the 
greatest  confusion  must  have  ensueil.     I  must  now,  gentlemen, 


420  GREAT  FAMINE   OF  1110,  [Ar-px.  B. 

mention  the  circumstance  of  the  distribution  of  rice  among  the 
many  miserable  objects  that  presented  themselves  during  the  late 
dreadful  calamity  in  and  near  the  city  of  Moorshedabad.  On  a 
representation  made  by  me,  the  committee  gave  their  consent 
that  a  distribution  should  take  place  to  the  amount  of  87,000 
rupees,  and  that  the  company  should  be  at  the  charge  of 
Rs.  40,000 ;  the  rest  was  to  be  defrayed  by  the  Nabob  and 
Ministers,  to  which  they  assented.' 

He  goes  on  to  bear  witness  to  the  charitable  eftbrts  of  the 
native  aristocracy,  and  states  that  the  price  of  rice  rose  to  4d.  per 
pound  during  the  later  months  of  the  famine. 

Section  VI. — Opinions  of  the  Court  of  Directors  on  the  action  of 
the  Bengal  Council  during  the  Famine. 

Letter,  dated  the  2%th  August  iTJi. — After  commending  in 
general  terms  those  individuals  who  have  done  anything  to 
relieve  the  distress,  the  Court  expresses  its  indignation  against 
those  ('but  especially  natives  of  England ')  who  have  turned  the 
public  distress  into  a  source  of  private  profit. 

Para.  10.  'We  are  led  to  these  reflections  by  perusing  the 
letters  from  Mr.  Becher  and  Mahomed  Reza  Khan,  which  accuse 
the  gomashtas  of  English  gentlemen '  (i.e.  English  servants  of  the 
Company),  '  not  barely  for  monopolizing  grain,  but  for  com- 
pelling the  poor  ryots  to  sell  even  the  seed  requisite  for  the  next 
harvest.  It  was  natural  for  us  to  expect,  upon  reading  the  above 
advices,  that  the  strictest  inquiry  into  the  names  and  stations  of 
all  persons  capable  of  such  transactions  would  have  been  the 
immediate  consequence,  and  that  the  most  exemplary  punish- 
ment had  been  inflicted  upon  all  oftenders  who  could  dare  to 
counteract  the  benevolence  of  the  Company,  and  entertain  a 
thought  of  profiting  by  the  universal  distress  of  the  miserable 
natives,  whose  dying  cries,  it  is  said,  were  too  affecting  to  admit 
of  an  adequate  description. 

II.  'You  will  judge  from  hence  how  great  must  have  been 
our  surprise  on  observing  that,  upon  a  general  charge  of  this 
nature  having  been  made,  and  not  one  name  specified  either  by 
Mr.  Becher  or  Mahomed  Reza  Khan,  you  never  entered  into  any 
inquiry  at  all  about  the  matter  !  And  what  seems  equally  strange 
and  absurd,  you  in  general  terms  tell  the  Resident  at  the  Durbar 
he  may  depend  on  your  concurrence  in  every  measure  that  may 


Appx.  B.J    DESCRIBED  BY  EYE-WITNESSES.  421 

tc7id  to  relieve  the  distress  of  the  poor  in  this  time  of  dearth,  and  yet 
reject  the  only  particular  remedy  pointed  out  ami  recommended 
by  him  for  that  purpose  !  ...  As  part  of  the  charge  sets  forth 
that  the  ryots  were  compelled  to  sell  their  rice  to  these  monopoliz- 
ing Europeans,  we  have  reason  to  suspect  that  they  could  be  no 
other  than  persons  of  some  rank  in  our  service ;  otherwise,  we 
apprehend  they  would  not  have  presumed  on  having  influence 
sufficient  to  prevent  an  inquiry  into  their  proceedings." 

1  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  India  for  tlie 
extracts  whence  the  foregoing  selections  are  derived,  my  own  abstracts  being 
too  condensed  for  publication.  I  have  not  attempted  to  change  the  official 
spelling. 


APPENDIX    C. 


THE  COOK'S  CHRONICLE  OF  BEERBHOOM, 

CiRC.   1785-1820. 

Being  the  Story  of  Ram  Ghiilain  Bawarchi,  aged  80. 

[The  term  *  Saheb,'  which  occurs  so  frequently,  is  a  title  of 
respect  appended  by  the  natives  to  the  names  of  English  gentle- 
men.] 

*  The  first  English  lord  of  Beerbhoom  was  Keating  Saheb  ;  my 
father  was  cook  to  him,  and  I  have  seen  him.  My  mother  held 
me  up  in  her  arms  to  look  at  him  when  he  passed  with  his  Sepoys 
and  elephants.  This  was  in  the  time  of  the  Rajahs  of  Beer- 
bhoom. Their  name  was  great ;  they  had  horses,  elephants,  and 
armies,  with  whom  they  used  to  hunt  and  to  war.  They  had  a 
palace  in  Rajnagar,  and  a  garden  where  were  their  tombs,  now 
gone  to  jungle.  Also  many  forts  among  the  western  hills,  and  a 
summer-house  at  Hoseinabad  ;  but  the  walls  of  all  these  have 
sunk  into  the  earth,  and  now  their  summer  palace  can  be  known 
only  by  the  little  green  mounds  of  earth  behind  the  collector's 
house.  I  have  heard  my  father  say  that  Lord  Keating  Saheb  was 
a  very  great  Saheb  ;  but  I  was  a  child,  and  know  not.  My  father 
was  a  very  old  man,  and  used  to  tell  me  that  when  he  was  newly 
married  the  Sahebs  came  into  the  country,  and  soon  the  price 
of  rice  rose  to  three  seers  for  the  rupee  {i.e.  during  the  famine 
of  1770);  so  that  all  the  people  died,  and  the  country  became 
jungle.  He  also  used  to  tell  me  that  the  Mahrattas  (Bargi  log) 
came  from  the  west,  burning  many  towns,  and  killing  the  people. 
They  seized  my  father,  and  tied  his  hands,  and  fastened  him  on 
a  horse,  and  took  him  away  to  their  camp  as  a  slave.  But  my 
father's  sister  prayed  the  chiefs,  and  they  let  my  father  go. 
Hesilrige  Saheb  and  Pye  Saheb  were  before  Keating  Saheb  ;  but 


Appx.  C]  COOK'S  CHRONICLE  OF BEERBHOOM.  423 

Pye  Saheb  lived  far  off,  and  Hesilrige  Saheb  came  and  cut  the 
jungle,  and  the  ryots  sowed  rice  again. 

'  The  first  Saheb,  I  remember  distinctly,  was  Judge  Brook  Saheb. 
His  house  was  near  where  the  judge's  house  now  stands.  My 
uncle  was  cook  in  Brook  Saheb's  house  ;  and  my  earliest  remem- 
brance is  Mem  Saheb  Brook  walking  up  and  down  the  verandah 
weeping  because  her  little  daughter  was  dead.  I  do  not  remem- 
ber what  she  died  of;  but  I  remember  my  uncle  carried  me  in 
his  arms  to  see  the  Saheb  and  the  Mem  Saheb  put  the  little  girl  in 
the  ground.  There  were  other  Sahebs  there  too  ;  but  the  Doctor 
Saheb  had  gone  to  Soorool  to  attend  Cheap  Saheb's  children.  The 
little  girl  was  carried  to  a  tamarind  tree  at  the  foot  of  the  garden, 
and  put  into  the  earth  there  ;  then  they  put  a  white  stone  over 
her,  and  the  stone  is  there  to  this  day. 

'  I  also  knew  Cheap  Saheb.  My  father  went  to  be  his  cook 
when  Keating  Saheb  left.  Cheap  Saheb  was  the  Company's  mer- 
chant (Commercial  Resident).  He  had  a  great  house  on  the  top 
of  a  hill,  with  a  wall  all  round,  higher  than  the  ramparts  round 
the  fort  in  Calcutta.  Within  the  wall  were  gardens  and  orchards 
bearing  many  fruits  ;  also  many  houses  and  stores.  The  Com- 
pany's cloth  was  kept  there  ;  and  the  Gomashtahs  and  Keranies 
lived  in  a  village  within  the  wall.  There  were  also  Sepoys  to 
guard  the  Company's  storehouses  ;  and  the  inferior  servants  of  the 
Company  lived  in  a  town  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill.  Cheap  Saheb 
was  a  rich  and  powerful  Saheb ;  he  had  many  children,  mostly 
daughters,  each  of  whom  had  servants  of  their  own.  There  were 
six  table-servants  to  wait  on  Cheap  Saheb  and  the  Mem  Saheb. 
He  had  about  sixty  house-servants  in  all,  with  many  horses,  and 
an  aviary  full  of  strange  birds.  Deer  used  to  run  about  in  the 
pleasure-grounds.  The  Mem  Saheb  used  to  be  very  fond  of 
ilowers.  He  was  a  great  Saheb  ;  and  I  learned  my  trade  in  his 
kitchen. 

'  Afterwards  there  was  a  gentleman  at  Elambazaar,  on  the  river, 
Erskine  Saheb,  who  died  not  many  years  ago.  He  also  was  a 
great  Saheb,  and  was  in  partnership  with  Cheap  Saheb.  They 
traded  in  many  things — in  cloths,  sugar,  silk,  lac — and  made 
much  money.  When  I  had  learned  my  work  in  Cheap  Saheb's 
kitchen,  I  was  sent  to  Elambazaar  to  act  for  Erskine  Saheb's 
rook,  who  was  ill  ;  but  the  kitchen  at  Elambazaar  was  not  so 
big  as  the  kitchen  at  Cheap  Saheb's. 


424  THE  COOK'S  CHRONICLE  [Ai'PX.  C. 

'  When  1  was  away  at  Soorool  and  Elambazaar,  there  were 
many  Sahebs  came  and  went  in  Soorie.  I  was  not  in  their 
kitchen,  and  did  not  know  them.  I  remember  the  names  of 
Kemble  Saheb,  Tikri  Saheb,  Chalblan  Saheb,  Reily  Saheb,  Mor- 
rison Saheb,  who  was  here  twelve  years,  Biscoe  Saheb.  I  did 
not  know  these  gentlemen.  (Some  of  these  names  are  so  per- 
verted, that  I  can  make  nothing  of  them.) 

'  The  price  of  all  things  was  cheap.  For  a  pice  and  a  half  (a 
halfpenny),  a  great  feast  (barakhana)  was  given.  (This  is  figu- 
rative, but  what  follows  is  the  truth.)  Fat  fowls  were  thirty-two 
to  the  rupee  {i.e.  for  two  shillings),  young  chickens  at  forty  or 
fifty,  ducks  from  sixteen  to  twenty-five,  lambs  three  annas  (4^d.) 
a  piece,  a  fat  sheep  six  annas  (gd.),  rice  from  sixty  to  one  hundred 
pounds  for  a  rupee.  All  things  cost  little.  Servants'  wages 
were  higher.  ]\Iy  father  got  Rs.  20  as  head  cook  ;  khidmatgars 
(table-servants)  got  Rs.  8 ;  coolies  (labourers)  got  four  to  seven 
pice  a-day  (i|d.  to  2|d.),  but  they  could  buy  more  food  with 
their  money,  and  lived  better.  The  Santal  people  did  not  then 
come  down  to  the  plains  in  search  of  work,  and  the  Bo^^Ties  and 
Haris  (labouring  classes)  got  plenty  of  work.  The  Santal  people 
were  then  cutting  the  jungle  at  the  foot  of  the  hills  on  the  west 
of  the  district ;  now  they  work  all  over  the  district.  Poor  men 
had  no  rupees  :  they  always  bought  and  sold  with  cowries. 
A  coolie  got  four  to  six  pan  (320  to  480)  cowries  for  his  day's 
work  (worth  from  i^d.  to  3d.).  There  were  very  few  inhabitants. 
Most  of  the  cultivators  had  farms  of  their  own,  but  there  were  also 
a  few  krisha/is  who  worked  for  them.  The  farmer  gave  the  land, 
the  seed,  the  plough,  and  the  oxen,  and  got  two-thirds  of  the 
crops  ;  the  krishan  only  gave  his  labour,  and  got  one-third  of  the 
crop!  This  was  the  way  they  tilled  the  jungle  lands.  When  the 
Santal  and  hill-men  came  down  from  the  hills  for  work,  then  the 
krishans  increased.  Now  they  are  all  over  the  district,  and  the 
krishans  have  to  give  the  plough  and  the  oxen  in  many  parts, 
and  get  but  barely  one-third  of  the  crop.  Their  lot  is  becoming 
hard.  All  the  cultivating  classes  used  to  be  able  to  get  land  ; 
now  they  cannot  get  land  even  as  krishans,  and  have  to  work  as 
hired  labourers. 

*  The  courts  and  public  offices,  when  I  was  a  boy,  were  in  the 
Red  House  village,  near  where  the  Padri  Saheb  (the  mission- 
ary) now  lives.       There  were  then  only  a  verv  few  Sahebs  in 


Appx.  C]         OF  BEERBHOOM,   i-jZz^-xZzo:  425 

the  station.  They  were  the  collector,  the  judge,  the  assistant, 
and  the  doctor.  I  do  not  remember  any  more.  I  was  married 
when  seven  years  of  age,  but  my  wife  was  taken  by  her  parents 
to  Gwari  (Krishnagar),  and  I  did  not  see  her  again  till  I  was 
twenty  years  old.  I  was  about  twenty  when  I  got  my  first  regular 
place.  It  was  with  Clark  Saheb,  the  assistant  collector.  He  lived 
in  the  Anindapur  House,  in  the  Lines  (cantonments) ;  it  has  now 
fallen  to  ruins.  There  was  then  only  a  little  road  in  the  station 
joining  one  house  to  another.  I  went  with  Clark  Saheb  to  Gwari 
when  he  was  transferred  there.  Clark  Saheb  went  before  in  a 
palki ;  I  and  the  other  servants  came  with  the  luggage  behind. 
We  had  a  guard.  The  baggage  was  carried  partly  on  bullock 
carts,  but  mostly  on  men's  backs,  as  the  roads  were  hardly  to  be 
passed.  We  went  by  Lampur  and  Kirinahar  to  Cutwa,  then  we 
put  the  baggage  into  boats,  and  so  reached  Krishnagar.  It  took 
us  sixteen  days,  I  remember.  There  was  no  government  road  in 
that  direction  then,  but  the  Zemindars  cleared  a  pathway,  each 
through  his  own  estates.  The  c/io7akidars  (village  watchmen) 
all  along  the  road  were  turned  out  to  protect  the  assistant  col- 
lector's baggage  as  we  went  along.' 

(I  took  down  the  foregoing  in  Hindusthani  from  the  old  man's 
lips  at  several  sittings,  but  at  this  point  he  had  a  severe  illness, 
and  I  had  left  the  district  before  he  was  strong  enough  to  come 
to  me  again.  It  is  useless  to  look  for  perfect  accuracy  in  such 
narratives,  but  it  forms  a  fair  specimen  of  the  chronicles  I  have 
obtained  from  other  aged  inhabitants.) 

W.  W.  H. 


APPENDIX    D. 


THE  PANDIT'S  CHRONICLE  OF  BEERBHOOM, 

Drawn  up  for  me  in  Bengali,  from  local  traditions,  Sanscrit  works, 
and  the  archives  of  native  families,  by  Nabin  Chandra  Bando- 
padya. 

Introduction. 

I  give  this  and  the  corresponding  Chronicle  of  Bishenpore 
without  attempting  historical  corrections.  They  are  fair  speci- 
mens of  a  learned  native's  idea  of  local  history,  and,  like  all 
similar  works,  contain  here  and  there  valuable  hints  as  to  the 
condition  of  the  people,  and  the  rights  of  the  various  orders  of 
society,  before  the  country  passed  under  our  care. 

To  the  student  of  ethnology,  the  class  of  manuscripts  of  which 
Appendix  D.  and  F.  are  specimens,  estabhsh  four  important 
points  :  First,  that  before  the  Aryans  reached  Bengal,  communities 
of  herdsmen  and  agriculturists  were  living  in  the  land  under 
their  own  princes ;  second,  that  the  Ar}'ans  obtained  a  footing 
in  Bengal,  not  always  as  conquerors,  but  in  various  capacities  ; 
third,  that  after  Aryan  kingdoms  had  been  founded  throughout 
Bengal,  many  aboriginal  princes  retained  their  territories  side 
by  side  with  the  new  comers,  and  sometimes  supplied  them 
with  aboriginal  troops  ;  fourth,  that  the  Aryan  colonization  of 
Bengal  was  a  gradual  natural  process,  accomplished  by  successive 
waves  of  emigrants  from  the  north,  and  that  a  long  enough  time 
elapsed  for  the  aborigines  to  influence  Aryan  dialects  and  Aryan 
religion,  before  they  were  finally  enslaved  or  driven  back  from 
the  lowlands. 

The  Pandit's  Chronicle. 

According  to  the  geographical  accounts  of  the  Purana,  the 
limit  of  the  Pundra  country  coincided  with  that  of  the  south  of 


Appx.  D.]        the  pandits  CHRONICLE.  427 

Bengal,  and  comprised  modem  Bengal,  Beerbhoom,  Jungle- 
Mahal,  Burdwan,  Raj-Mahal,  some  parts  of  Moorshedabad, 
Dinajpur,  Midnapur,  Nuddea,  and  Nabadwipa.  From  the  name 
of  the  country,  the  ancients  called  its  inhabitants  Pundaris. 

Ballal  Sen,  king  of  Gour,  divided  the  descendants  of  the 
live  Brahmans,  brought  into  the  country  by  Adishwara,  into  two 
sects — the  Varindra  and  the  Ran — both  of  which  held  the  title 
of  Kulin.  The  Rari  inhabited  Burdwan,  Beerbhoom,  Bancorah, 
and  a  few  other  towns,  in  which  Bhuba  Nand  Sen  established  a 
separate  monarchy.  It  was  during  the  reign  of  the  Sen  family, 
or  that  of  the  Pals,  that  the  original  princes  of  Bishenpore 
founded  an  empire  in  the  mountainous  regions.  Much  is  told  of 
the  separate  kingdoms  set  up  by  the  successors  of  Adishwara. 
Each  prince  ruled  his  district  with  vigour ;  and  although  he  did 
not  oppress  his  vassal  nobility,  he  maintained  complete  sway 
over  them. 

A  tradition  relates  the  origin  of  the  name  Beerbhoom.  It  is 
stated  that  once  upon  a  time  the  Raja  of  Bishenpore  went  out  to 
exercise  his  trained  hawks  in  the  mountainous  districts  of  his 
empire.  He  threw  off  one  of  his  birds  to  the  pursuit  of  a  heron, 
then  usually  hunted  with  hawks.  The  heron  turned  upon  its 
pursuer  with  great  fury,  and  came  off  victorious.  This  unusual 
occurrence  e.xcited  the  surprise  of  the  king.  He  imagined  that 
it  must  have  been  owing  to  some  mysterious  quality  in  the  soil  ; 
that  the  soil  was  in  fact  Vir-mati  {i.e.  vigorous  soil),  and  that 
whatever  might  be  brought  forth  by  that  soil  would  be  endowed 
with  heroic  energy  and  power.  Thereupon  he  named  it  Vir- 
bhumi,  a  name  by  which  that  mountainous  region  was  ever 
afterwards  known.  Others,  however,  derive  the  name  from  the 
inhabitants  themselves  ;  for  in  old  times  this  country  produced 
many  heroes,  and  so  it  acquired  the  name  of  Vir-bhumi  (Beer- 
bhoom), or  Land  of  Heroes.^  The  present  capital  of  the  district 
is  Suri,  a  corruption  of  Surjya,  a  Bengali  term  for  '  glory.' 

Beerbhoom  is  bounded  on  the  north  by  Monghir  and  Raj- 
Mahal,  on  the  south  by  Burdwan  and  Pachete  (Bancorah),  on  the 
east  by  Raj-Shye,  and  on  the  west  by  Monghyr  and  Pachete. 
At  the  time  of  the  Muhammadan  rule,  the  country  was  named 
by  Abul   Fazl   '  Madaran.^      In  old    times  the  country  was  ill 

'  It  is  right  to  state  th.it  Vir  or  Bir,  in  Santali,  the  aboriginal  language  of 
Rcerbhoom,  means  'jungle.' — W.  W.  II. 


428  THE  PANDITS  CHRONICLE       [Appx.  D. 

su])plied  with  water,  and  this,  together  with  the  fart  that  a  large 
part  of  it  was  occupied  by  jungles,  rendered  it  in  great  measure 
unfit  for  agriculture. 

When  Beerbhoom  was  in  the  possession  of  the  Mussulmans,  it 
was  frequently  invaded  by  the  hilly  tribe  'Jhar  Bhundi.'  To 
put  an  end  to  these  plundering  excursions,  Shere  Shah  made 
over  Soory  to  Adoola  the  son  of  Boduroolah.  In  1540,  Shere 
Shah,  with  500,000  Afghans,  defeated  Hoomaon  at  Canouj,  and 
mounted  the  throne  of  Delhi.  In  the  following  year  he  came  to 
Gour,  and  divided  it  into  several  districts,  over  each  of  which  he 
placed  a  distinct  ruler.  These  governors  had  a  superior  who 
adjusted  disputes,  and  acted  as  the  viceroy  of  Shere  Shah. 

To  the  east  of  Soory  is  a  village,  Akchokra,  where  the  Pandus 
are  said  to  have  taken  refuge  after  their  escape  from  Jatigriha. 
In  this  place  one  of  the  five  brothers,  by  name  Bim,  killed  a 
monster  named  Hirombok  (probably  a  legend  of  the  Aryao  con- 
quest of  Bengol),  and  married  his  sister  Hiromba,  by  whom  he 
had  a  son  called  Ghuttutcuch,  who  played  a  conspicuous  part  in 
the  battle  of  Kurukshetra,  as  mentioned  in  the  Mahahharat.  By 
some  accounts  it  is  said  that  Akchocra  includes  Nimai,  Ghore- 
daha,  Gonootia,  and  Cottershore,  and  that  Bhim  resided  there 
with  his  wife  and  motlier.  There  is  a  place  in  Beerbhoom  called 
Deoghur,  where  Ram,  on  his  way  to  Ceylon,  left  the  god  Siva. 
Another  Siva  named  Bakeshwar  was  placed  in  a  village  which 
afterwards  received  the  name  of  that  god,  and  to  which  many 
worshippers  still  resort  in  the  month  of  April  of  each  year  to  do 
honour  to  the  deity.  During  the  reign  of  the  Baidya  family, 
the  kings  of  Bishenpore  and  Burdwan  alone  had  a  place  in 
history.  Of  the  kings  of  Beerbhoom — Lowshan,  Ichay  Gose, 
Shungai,  Gidhore  (some  of  these  seem  to  have  been  aboriginal 
princes),  Mollar  Singh,  and  Beersingh — we  know  little  more  than 
the  names. 

The  hills  of  Beerbhoom  were  inhabited  by  savage  tribes,  and 
only  in  the  outskirts  of  the  country  did  the  minor  kings  make 
their  residence.  Two  brothers,  Bir-Singh  and  Chaitanya  Singh, 
came  to  Beerbhoom  from  the  north-west  provinces,  subdued  the 
mountaineers,  and  selected  places  as  their  capitals,  which  still 
bear  their  names — Birsinghpur  and  Chaitangapur  and  Chaitanga. 
Fattih  Singh,  who  is  said  to  have  been  the  brother  of  Bir-Sing. 
subdued  many  places  in    Moorshedahad,  which  now  bear  the 


Appx.  D.J  OF  DEERBHOOM.  429 

name  of  Fattipore  Purgunah,  and  are  included  in  the  district  of 
Beerbhoom. 

Bir-Singh  was  the  first  (Hindu)  king  of  Beerbhoom.  He  pos- 
sessed a  strong  and  athletic  frame,  and  by  his  might  subdued  the 
inhabitants  of  the  jungles,  and  thus  extended  the  boundary  of 
his  kingdom.  He  deprived  his  brother  of  his  territories,  and 
built  the  capital  of  Birsinghpore.  Many  kings  and  zemindars 
owned  his  power,  and  acknowledged  him  as  their  lord  paramount. 
The  ruins  of  palaces,  forts,  and  tanks  are  still  to  be  seen  in 
Birsinghpore,  six  miles  west  of  Soory.  The  king  lost  his  life  in 
battle  with  the  Mussulmans;  and  his  queen,  from  fear  of  being 
maltreated  by  the  enemy,  drowned  herself  in  a  pond,  which  is 
still  named  the  Ranidoha  (Queen's  Tank).  Bir-Singh  dedicated 
a  temple  to  the  honour  of  the  goddess  Kali,  and  set  up  a  stone 
idol.  The  rajah  also  placed  an  idol  named  Gopal  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Birsinghpore  ;  and  the  place,  being  surrounded 
by  a  jungle,  received  the  name  of  Brindaban. 

The  Bhills,  Cols,  Gondas,  and  other  hill-tribes  (aborigines), 
lived  in  the  Maghadha  kingdom  (Bahar  and  Bengal),  and  Beer- 
bhoom was  also  included  in  it.  This  kingdom  embraced  a  large 
extent  of  country,  but  does  not  appear  to  have  been  well 
governed,  as  even  among  the  zemindars,  who  lived  within  a 
short  distance  of  the  capital,  there  were  some  who  did  not  pay 
tribute  (in  other  words,  the  Aryan  conquest  was  partial).  One 
rajah  was  exempt  from  tribute,  owing  to  the  fact  that  he  was  a 
good  sportsman.  After  the  fall  of  the  Maghadha  dynasty,  the 
Pals  assumed  the  sujjreme  power;  their  original  seat  was  Bahar. 
The  Baidya  house  succeeded  the  Pals. 

The  Santals  of  Beerbhoom  inhabit  the  hills  of  Dumka,  Jal- 
Jhari,  and  Kumarabad.  Their  god  was  Boram  (Marang-Buru), 
to  whom  they  offered  human  sacrifices.  When  a  pestilence 
ravaged  their  country,  however,  they  abandoned  the  practice, 
and,  instead,  offered  goats,  hogs,  or  other  animals.  The  Boalia, 
another  hill-tribe,  worshipped  the  same  deity.  Some  of  them 
lived  in  Burdwan  during  the  time  of  Rajah  Kritti  Chander,  and 
were  employed  by  him  as  porters.  Tliey  still  follow  that  occu- 
pation in  Burdwan  and  Calcutta.  The  jungles  to  the  north-west 
of  Beerbhoom  are  inhabited  by  a  savage  tribe  called  Birpore, 
who  earn  a  livelihood  by  the  sale  of  ropes  made  from  the  bark 
of  the  chinody  tree.     They  feed  upon  the   flesh   of  monkeys, 


430  THE  PANDITS  CHRONICLE       [Appx.  D. 

dogs,  and  hogs,  and  consider  clcpliants  worthy  of  their  homage 
and  worship.  These  savage  hordes,  together  with  the  wild 
beasts  of  the  jungle,  were  a  continual  source  of  alarm  to  the 
lowlanders.  But  as  the  country  furnished  those  heroes  whom 
the  (Hindu)  kings  were  accustomed  to  employ  in  their  service, 
its  inhabitants  (the  wild  tribes)  were  not  exterminated. 

It  is  affirmed  by  some  that  the  predecessors  of  AH  Naki 
Khan  gained  possession  of  Raj-Nagar  by  murdering  Bir  Rajah ; 
but  before  recounting  the  events  of  his  reign,  it  will  be  necessary 
to  inquire  as  to  the  time  when  Raj-Nagar  was  established.  It 
appears  that  the  kingdom  of  Nagar  was  founded  during  the 
reign  of  the  Baidya  family,  and  not  that  of  the  Mussulmans ;  for 
it  is  to  be  observed,  that  when  the  Mussulmans  obtained  the 
throne  of  Bengal,  the  Subadar  (viceroy)  constructed  a  road  from 
Debkoti,  east  of  Gour,  to  Nagar,  the  chief  town  of  Beerbhoom, 
for  the  purposes  of  traffic.     This  was  in  the  year  1205. 

Bir  Rajah  was  descended  from  a  noble  Brahman  family. 
He  made  Nagar  his  capital,  and  enjoyed  an  unrivalled  reputa- 
tion for  his  valour  and  skill  in  arms.  All  the  kings  of  the  sur- 
rounding districts  owned  him  as  their  paramount.  When  the 
Patans  were  in  the  height  of  their  power,  and  were  laying  waste 
many  fair  provinces  in  Bengal,  Bir  Rajah  stood  forth  to  oppose, 
and,  by  his  military  tact  and  distinguished  courage,  succeeded 
in  freeing  the  country  from  the  oppressor. 

Two  Patans  named  Assad-UUa-Khan  and  Joned  Khan,  of 
the  Patan  race,  from  the  north-west,  one  day  presented  them- 
selves before  the  Rajah  of  Nagar.  Their  stature  and  manly 
bearing  attracted  his  attention,  and  impressed  him  wdth  such  an 
idea  of  their  prowess,  that  he  resolved  to  take  them  into  his 
service ;  and  after  their  valour  had  been  sufficiently  put  to  the 
test,  he  raised  them  to  the  rank  of  commanders  and  confidential 
ministers.  Under  their  administration  the  country  made  great  and 
rapid  advances,  and  the  people  enjoyed  the  blessings  of  peace. 
In  course  of  time,  however,  the  Patans  became  jealous  of  the 
power  of  their  master,  and  watched  every  opportunity  to  work 
his  destruction.  One  of  them,  Assad-Ulla,  became  enamoured 
of  the  beauty  of  the  queen,  and  instigated  her  to  favour  their 
base  designs.  It  is  said  that  the  king  was  fond  of  wrestling, 
and  that  he  had  a  special  building  set  apart  for  that  purpose, 
where  he  engaged  daily  in  the  sport.     On  one  occasion,  when 


Appx.  D.J  OF  BEERBHOOM.  431 

Assad-UUa  presented  himself  there,  the  rajah  ordered  his  servants 
to  refuse  him  admittance.  This  roused  the  anger  of  Assad-Ulla. 
He  returned  with  his  brother  Joned,  forced  an  entrance  into  the 
hall,  and  fell  upon  the  king.  A  serious  conflict  now  ensued ; 
and  it  is  difficult  to  say  how  it  would  have  ended,  had  not  Joned 
Khan,  at  the  instigation  of  the  queen,  with  whom  he  also  was  in 
love,  attacked  them  both,  and  threw  them  struggling  into  a  well. 
Although  the  servants  and  retainers  of  the  king  stood  by,  they 
were  prevented  from  interfering  by  the  presence  of  the  queen  ; 
so  that  both  the  rajah  and  Assad-Ulla  were  drowned.  The 
people  mourned  the  death  of  their  king,  under  whom  they  had 
so  long  enjoyed  happiness  and  prosperity.' 

Joned  Khan. — The  queen  now  assumed  the  royal  power,  and 
raised  Joned  Khan  to  the  rank  of  Diwan.  The  administration 
of  affairs  was  placed  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Patan.  Ere  long 
the  queen  died,  leaving  a  son  as  legal  heir  to  the  throne.  After 
her  death  the  soldiers  rose  in  mutiny,  but  were  speedily  brought 
back  to  duty  by  the  Patan.  Joned  died  soon  after,  leaving  the 
government  in  the  hands  of  Bahadur  Khan. 

Before  proceeding  with  his  reign,  a  few  facts  may  be  stated 
regarding  the  earlier  history  of  these  Patans.  Their  father  died 
while  the  children  were  still  young,  leaving  his  widow  totally 
unprovided  with  the  means  of  existence.  One  day,  while  she 
had  gone  to  beg  some  rice  of  her  neighbours,  a  fakir  made  his 
appearance  at  her  dwelling,  and,  apparently  without  any  cause, 
beat  one  of  the  boys  severely  with  his  shoes.  The  screams  of 
the  child  soon  brought  the  mother  to  his  aid  ;  and  on  her  de- 
manding an  explanation  from  the  fakir,  he  consoled  her  by  saying 
that  he  had  not  been  beating,  but  blessing  her  son,  and  that  the 
time  was  not  far  distant  when  both  brothers  should  sway  the 
sceptre  of  Bengal.  The  youths,  when  arrived  at  manhood,  set 
out  on  a  journey  to  distant  lands,  and  used  every  opportunity  of 
making  themselves  expert  in  the  use  of  arms.  In  the  course  of 
their  travels  they  came  to  Beerbhoom  ;  and  we  have  already 
recounted  their  deeds  in  that  country,  and  how  they  became 
kings. 

Bahadur  Khan,  or  Ran-Mast  Khan  (a.d.  1600-1659).^ — This 
prince  commenced  his  reign  in  the  month  of  Joit   1007,  Bengali 

•  The  learned  pandit  has  here  spoiled  a  very  striking  legend.  Elsewhere 
I  hope  to  tell  it  in  its  proper  form.  *  B.  D.  A. 


432  THE  PANDrrS  CHRONICLE        [Appx.  D. 

era.  Under  his  rule  the  country  had  rest  and  peace,  the  popu- 
lation was  considerably  increased,  and  agriculture  met  with  a 
full  share  of  attention.  He  died  in  the  Bengali  year  1066  (a.d. 
1689),  leaving  the  throne  to  his  only  son,  Khwaja  Kamal  Khan. 
Nothing  is  recorded  of  the  latter  except  that  he  beautified  the 
capital,  and  effected  several  other  improvements  throughout  his 
kingdom.  He  died  in  the  Bengali  year  1104  (a.d.  1697),  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  son  Asd  UUa,  one  of  the  wisest  and  most 
pious  kings  of  his  time.  Asd  Ulla  added  to  the  number  of  the 
troops,  and  caused  numerous  tanks  to  be  dug  in  the  capital,  by 
which  means  the  miseriea  resulting  from  the  scarcity  of  water 
were  in  great  measure  avoided.  He  contrived  to  free  his  king- 
dom from  the  necessity  of  paying  tribute  to  the  Nawab,  to  whom 
he  rendered  valuable  assistance  in  time  of  war.  ISIany  mosques 
were  dedicated  to  the  honour  of  God,  and  much  of  his  time  was 
passed  in  religious  services.  He  left  two  sons,  Badya  Jama  and 
Azmat  Khan. 

Badya  Jama.^ — This  prince  ascended  the  throne  in  the  year 
1 125  (a.d.  1718),^  and  obtained  a  sannad  from  Murshad  Kuli, 
the  Nawab  of  Moorshedabad.  It  was  about  this  time  that  a  new 
arrangement  was  made  regarding  the  tribute  paid  to  the  Nawab, 
346,000  rupees  being  the  amount  agreed  upon.  During  this 
reign,  the  Marhattahs,  under  Bhaskar  Pandit,  plundered  the 
western  countries,  and  eventually  encamped  in  a  place  called 
Kendua  Danga,  or  Ganj  Murshad.  But  when  the  rainy  season 
set  in  they  retired  to  Catwah,  accompanied  by  Mir  Habib,  a 
Patan.  Badya  Jama,  with  his  brother  Ali  Naki,  and  the  Rajah 
of  Burdwan,  assisted  the  Nawab  in  dispersing  the  Marhattahs, 
and  driving  them  to  Midnapore.  Badya  had  two  wives.  By  the 
first  he  had  two  sons,  Ahmad  Jama  Khan  and  Mahammad  Ali 
Khan  ;  and  by  the  second,  one  named  Asd  Jama  Khan.  Besides 
these  three,  he  had  an  illegitimate  son  named  Bahadur  Jama 
Khan.  Ahmad  was  of  a  religious  turn  of  mind,  and  interfered 
in  no  way  with  the  administration  of  the  country.  The  second 
and  third  sons  were  powerful  princes,  and  gained  a  high  reputation 
for  their  courage  and  skill  in  arms.  On  a  certain  occasion,  a 
fakir  named  Sai  Ful  Hak,  from  the  north,  made  his  appearance 
at  the  Beerbhoom  court,  and  in  course  of  time  was  admitted  into 
the  confidence  of  the  king.  The  fakir  possessed  a  good  know- 
^  The  Pandit  uses  J  for  Z,  there  being  no  Z  in  Bengali.  ^  3.  D.  A. 


Appx.  D.|  OF  BEERBHOOM.  433 

ledge  of  the  Kuran,  and  the  king  spent  much  of  his  time  in 
hearing  him  read  from  the  book.  In  process  of  time  he  became 
so  much  engrossed  with  his  reHgious  instructor,  that  the  affairs  of 
his  kingdom  were  totally  neglected  ;  and  his  sons,  All  and  Ahmad, 
set  themselves  to  get  rid  of  the  favourite.  With  this  view  they 
made  their  way  to  Moorshedabad.  While  they  remained  here, 
an  occurrence  took  place  which  brought  them  under  the  notice 
of  the  Nawab.  One  day  an  elephant  of  the  emperor  was  led  to 
a  pond  to  drink,  near  to  which  Ahmad  happened  to  be  standing. 
As  the  animal  drew  up,  the  driver  called  to  the  prince  to  move 
out  of  its  way ;  but  Ahmad,  instead  of  heeding  the  order,  caught 
hold  of  the  elephant  by  the  tusks,  and  threw  it  to  a  considerable 
distance.  This  feat  amazed  those  that  stood  by,  and  ere  long 
reached  the  ears  of  the  Nawab,  who  immediately  summoned  the 
brothers  into  his  presence.  On  being  asked  the  reason  of  their 
sudden  appearance  in  Moorshedabad,  the  Patans  informed  him 
of  the  story  of  the  fakir,  and  the  disorder  likely  to  occur  in  their 
father's  kingdom.  The  Nawab  gave  them*  permission  to  murder 
the  fakir ;  and  accordingly  the  brothers,  hastening  back  to  Raj- 
Nagar,  put  the  fakir  to  death.  Their  father  mourned  his  loss, 
and  slowly  pining,  died  of  a  broken  heart.  His  sons,  too,  felt 
ashamed  of  their  crime,  and  promised  to  their  father  neither  to 
interfere  in  any  political  matter,  nor  to  entertain  any  hopes  of  ever 
succeeding  to  the  throne.  They  accordingly  resolved  to  support 
their  step-brother  Asd  as  the  rightful  heir.  With  this  intent  they 
departed  for  Moorshedabad,  and  informed  the  Nawab  of  the 
affair.  The  Nawab  at  first  expressed  reluctance,  saying  that  it 
was  illegal  to  raise  the  youngest  to  the  throne  while  his  brothers 
lived  ;  but,  on  their  earnest  entreaties,  he  gave  his  consent,  and 
tlie  coronation  of  Asd  Jama  was  performed  with  great  pomp  on 
their  return  home.  The  two  brothers  afterwards  set  out  for 
Moorshedabad,  and  remained  in  the  service  of  the  Nawab.  They 
distinguished  themselves  in  a  war  with  the  Marhattahs ;  and  on 
one  occasion,  when  Mir  Jafir  Ali  Khan's  son-in-law  had  been 
carried  off  a  prisoner,  and  confined  in  an  iron  cage,  they  entered 
tlie  camp  of  the  Marhattahs  in  disguise,  and  having  overheard 
their  plans,  attacked  them  unawares,  and  returned  in  triumph 
with  the  captive. 

Suraja  Doula  ascended  the  throne  of  his  grandfather  as  Vice- 
roy of  Bengal,  and  ere  long  found  himself  called  upon  to  take 

VOL.  I.  •  2   E 


434  THE  PANDITS  CHRONICLE        [Api  x.  D. 

up  arms  against  the  English.  Two  reasons  are  alleged  :  i.  That 
the  English  had  given  refuge  to  Kishna  Doss,  the  enemy  of  the 
Nawab  ;  and  2.  That,  without  any  permission  from  the  Nawab, 
they  had  established  forts  in  the  countries  under  his  control. 
Accordingly  the  Nawab  collected  a  powerful  host,  the  command 
of  which  he  gave  to  Ali  Naki  Khan  and  Ahmad  Jama  Khan  of 
Beerbhoom,  along  with  Diwan  Manik  Chand,  Bahur  Mohan 
Lall,  and  Jafer  Ali  Khan,  These  marched  against  the  English 
towards  Calcutta,  and  encamped  at  Bagh-bazar.  The  English 
fled  to  Howra,  Bally,  and  the  fort.  The  Nawab  attacked  the 
fort,  and  carried  it  by  storm.  He  placed  the  English  prisoners 
under  the  charge  of  Diwan  Manik  Chand,  and  was  going  to  re- 
turn in  triumph  to  Moorshedabad.  Diwan  treated  the  captives 
with  cruelty,  and  shut  them  up,  one  hundred  and  forty-six  in  all, 
in  the  Black  Hole,  whence  only  thirteen  came  out  alive.  This 
was  in  the  year  1756. 

After  this  victory  Ali  Naki  Khan  of  Beerbhoom  took  pos- 
session of  part  of  the  enemy's  country,  and  laid  the  foundation 
of  Alipore,  which  is  now  the  seat  of  government  (the  residence 
of  the  Lieutenant-Governors  of  Bengal).  Of  all  the  petty  princes 
under  the  Nawab,  this  man,  together  wdth  his  brother,  were  the 
most  powerful,  and  rendered  the  most  effectual  assistance  to 
their  lord.  On  one  occasion  Suraja  Doula  wished  Ali  to  inform 
him  which  lady  in  Beerbhoom  he  considered  to  be  the  most 
beautiful.-^  The  Patan,  enraged,  replied  that  he  accounted  those 
beautiful  who  bore  any  resemblance  to  his  mother  and  her 
daughters.  So  saying,  he  raised  his  sword  and  struck  at  the 
Nawab;  but  the  blow  missed  the  mark,  and  coming  down  upon 
a  stone  pillar,  split  it  in  two.  The  attendants  were  so  much 
taken  by  surprise,  that  they  made  no  effort  to  protect  their  royal 
master.  Probably,  also,  the  known  daring  of  the  Patan  was  suf- 
ficient to  restrain  any  interference  on  their  part.  The  brothers 
were,  however,  obliged  to  withdraw  themselves  from  court  for 
some  time ;  but  afterwards,  having  made  their  peace  with  the 
Nawab,  they  were  permitted  to  return,  and  were  again  received 
into  the  favour  and  confidence  of  their  prince. 

After  the  defeat  of  Badya  Jama  Khan  of  Beerbhoom  by  the 
Rajah  Gidhor,  Ali  Naki  Khan  led  his  army  against  his  father's 

'  An  insult,  implying  that  Ali  would  name  some  one  of  his  own  family, 
whom  the  Nawab  would  then  seize  as  a  concubine. 


Appx.  D.]  of  BEERBHOOM.  435 

enemy,  and  after  a  severe  struggle,  which  lasted  for  six  days, 
succeeded  in  driving  his  opponents  from  the  field.  The  town 
of  Deoghar  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Patan  after  the 
subjection  of  the  hill-tribes.  It  was,  and  still  is,  the  seat 
of  the  Hindu  god  Baidya-Nath  (Bij-Nath).  The  devotees 
brought  to  its  shrine  many  valuable  presents  of  the  value  of 
about  50.000  rupees  every  month.  Ali  Naki  Khan  left  tlic 
god  in  the  hands  of  the  men  of  the  place,  called  Pandahs,  from 
whom  he  exacted  tribute.  The  Patan  married  a  sister  of  his 
father,  by  whom  he  had  a  son  who  died  while  still  a  youth  (?).  His 
death  preyed  upon  the  minds  both  of  his  father  and  his  uncle, 
Ahmad  Jama  Khan,  the  latter  of  whom  at  length  put  an  end  to 
his  life  on  the  15th  Magh  1169  (1762  a.d.).  The  father  gradu- 
ally sank  under  these  heavy  losses,  and  passed  the  last  Xsvo  years 
of  his  life  in  extreme  misery.  He  died  on  21st  Falgoon  1171, 
and  was  buried  in  front  of  his  brother's  tomb.  The  two  brothers 
were  possessed  of  noble  quaUties.  They  were  gentle,  brave, 
generous,  and  averse  to  sensual  gratifications.  Badya  Jama 
Khan  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life  in  the  performance  of 
religious  duties,  and  at  length  died  in  11 78  (a.d.  177 i),  having 
suffered  much  in  his  declining  years  from  the  death  of  his  son. 
He  was  buried  in  a  garden  to  the  west  of  Nagar.  His  surviving 
son  Asd  Jama  Khan  was  already  on  the  throne.  Immediately 
upon  his  accession,  with  the  consent  of  his  father  and  brothers, 
he  adorned  the  capital,  and  placed  in  it  many  rich  merchants 
who  added  greatly  to  its  commercial  importance.  Mir  Jafir  Ali 
Khan  placed  the  reins  of  government  in  the  hands  of  his  son, 
who,  soon  after  his  accession,  began  to  tyrannize  over  his  subjects. 
He  killed  two  daughters  of  the  Nawab ;  but  while  engaged  in 
plundering  their  treasures,  he  was  struck  by  lightning,  and  car- 
ried off  along  with  his  accomplices.  Asd  Jama,  the  Rajah  of 
Beerbhoom,  thinking  this  a  good  opportunity  for  taking  up 
arms  against  the  Nawab,  marched  with  a  powerful  army  to 
Chuna  Khalli.  The  Zamindars,  vassals  of  the  Nawab,  failed 
to  make  any  resistance,  and  their  lord  was  so  much  affected 
by  the  death  of  his  son,  that  he  could  not  put  himself  at  their 
head.  Accordingly,  to  prevent  the  advance  of  the  Rajah  of 
Beerbhoom,  he  sued  for  peace,  and  requested  Asd  Jama  to  be 
content  with  the  districts  he  had  already  taken  possession  of. 
This,  however,  did  not  satisfy  the  Rajah,  who  proceeded  across 


436  THE  PANDITS  CHRONICLE         [Appx.  D. 

the  Ganges.  Upon  this  the  wife  of  the  Nawab,  Mari  Bigam, 
sought  the  aid  of  the  Enghsh,  promising  them  a  large  tract  of 
her  husband's  dominions  in  return.  They  consented,  and  im- 
mediately gave  battle  to  the  Rajah,  defeated  his  immense  host, 
and  pursued  him  to  the  fort  of  Nagar.  The  siege  of  this  fortress 
lasted  several  days,  but  at  length  the  Rajah  lost  his  bravest 
general,  Afzal  Khan.  A  treaty  was  afterwards  concluded  between 
the  parties,  the  conditions  of  which  were :  i.  That  the  English 
should  have  one-third  share  of  the  Rajah's  rental.  2.  That 
they  should  not  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  Beerbhoom.  3.  That 
on  all  occasions  of  importance,  the  Rajah  should  consult  with 
the  English.  After  this,  Asd  Jama  regularly  paid  tribute  to  the 
Nawab.  He  also  gave  1000  biggahs  (360  acres)  of  land  rent  free 
to  Moonshee  Anup  Mithra,  in  return  for  sums  of  money  lent  to 
the  Rajah.  He  bestowed  6500  biggahs  (2200  acres)  of  land 
as  Jagir  for  educating  his  son. 

Fourteen  miles  from  Soory  there  is  a  village  called  Mallar- 
pore.  Mallar  Sing  was  its  proprietor,  a  religious  and  popular 
man.  He  was  imposed  upon  by  a  person  who  told  him  that 
the  Rajah  of  Nagar  intended  to  make  him  adopt  the  religion 
of  Muhammad.  He  took  this  so  much  to  heart,  that  without 
inquiry  as  to  the  truth  he  put  himself  to  death.  The  Rajah  was 
grieved  on  hearing  of  his  death,  and  endeavoured  to  discover 
the  perpetrator  of  the  trick,  but  without  success. 

Twenty  miles  from  Soory,  and  north  of  Nagar,  there  is  a  vast 
forest  called  Sinpahari.  The  governor  of  the  district  was  Ichai 
Ghose,  who  built  there  a  large  temple  named  Ichai  Mandir,  and 
a  fort  called  Sham  Rup  Ghar.  He  was  attacked  and  overpowered 
by  another  man  in  the  district  called  Lai  Sen ;  and  his  temple, 
wnth  its  goddess  and  fort,  fell  into  the  hands  of  his  enemy. 

Kindu  Billogram,  a  village  eighteen  miles  distant  from  Soorj', 
was  the  residence  of  a  famous  poet  named  Jaya  deva  Muni,  and 
of  a  god,  Radha  Damuda.  The  poet  is  said  to  have  walked  forty 
miles  every  day  to  bathe  in  the  Ganges.  The  village  is  con- 
sidered to  be  a  sacred  place  by  the  Hindus,  who  assemble 
annually,  to  the  number  of  50,000  or  60,000,  to  offer  worship  at 
the  shrine.  A  fair  called  Magher  Sankranti  takes  place  on  the 
last  day  of  Magh  every  year. 

Asd  Jama  Khan  of  Beerbhoom  died  of  paralysis  at  Calcutta 
in  1 184  (a.d.  1777).     He  w-as  a  liberal  and  powerful  prince,  and 


An-x.  1).]  OF  BEERBHOOM.  437 

was  held  in  high  esteem  by  his  subjects.  He  had  a  great  desire 
to  reign  over  the  whole  of  Bengal,  and  for  this  purpose  made 
many  attempts  at  the  supreme  power,  but  in  vain.  His  reign 
extended  over  a  period  of  twenty-six  years.  After  his  death  his 
brother  Bahadur  Jama  Khan  besought  the  assistance  of  the  Eng- 
lish Government  to  raise  him  to  the  throne.  At  the  same  time 
the  widow  of  Asd  Jama  Khan,  called  Lall  Bihi,  together  with  her 
brother  Mahammed  Taki  Khan,  set  up  a  rival  claim,  and  con- 
tended that,  as  Bahadur  was  the  illegitimate  son  of  Badya  Jama 
Khan,  the  father  of  her  husband,  he  could  have  no  legal  right  to 
be  prince.  The  English  decided  in  her  favour,  and  accordingly 
Lall  Bihi  was  raised  to  the  throne.  Soon  after  this,  however, 
Bhoton  Saha,  an  intimate  friend  of  Bahadur,  devised  a  plan  which 
deprived  the  widow  of  her  power.  He  instructed  the  porter  of 
Mahammed  Taki  to  kill  Bahadur's  doorkeeper,  and  to  report 
that  he  had  been  commissioned  by  his  master  to  cause  the  death 
of  Bahadur  himself.  By  bribing  the  servant,  Bhoton  managed  to 
get  his  evil  design  carried  into  effect ;  and  the  English,  believing 
the  report,  took  the  power  from  the  hands  of  Mahammed  and 
conferred  it  upon  Bahadur.  The  widow  was  kindly  treated  by 
the  new  king,  and  received  a  certain  amount  for  her  support. 
Bahadur  died  in  1196  (a.d.  1789),  and  was  buried  in  the  garden 
at  Nagar.  He  left  his  son  Mahammed  Jama  Khan  as  heir  to  the 
throne. 

Radha  Krishna  Rai  was  one  of  the  Dewans  of  the  kings  of 
Nagar.  He  resided  in  Purandarpur — so  named  from  the  god 
Purandar,  found  under  the  earth — and  obtained  1400  bgs.  (500 
acres)  of  land  from  the  rajahs  as  Jagir. 

Mahammed  Jama  Khan  succeeded  to  the  throne,  with  the 
consent  of  the  English,  in  1197  (a.d.  1790).  During  his  minority 
the  affairs  of  state  were  entrusted  to  Dewan  Lalla  Ram  Nath  and 
Mr.  Keating.  When  arrived  at  manhood,  he  assumed  the  reins 
of  government,  and  ruled  with  wisdom  and  firmness.  In  person 
he  was  tall  and  powerful ;  and  after  his  death,  his  painting  was 
sent  to  Calcutta.  The  population  of  Beerbhoom  during  his  reign 
was  700,000,  of  which  one-third  were  Hindus  (in  reality  two- 
thirds).  It  was  Lalla  Ram  Nath  who  effected  the  permanent 
arrangement  for  the  revenues  of  Beerbhoom.  He  built  the 
temple  of  Bhandissar  Siva  in  a  |)lacc  calleil  Bhandiban,  six  miles 
from  Soory.     A  large  tract  of  land  was  allowed  him  as  Jagir. 


438  THE  PANDITS  CHRONICLE.       [Appx.  D. 

Mahammed  Diwan  Jama  Khan,  the  son  of  Mahammed  Jama 
Khan,  ascended  the  tliione  in  1209  (a.d.  1802),  and  received 
the  sanad  from  the  hands  of  the  EngHsh  in  12 19  (a.d.  18 12), 
He  died  in  1262  (a.d.  1855),  leaving  his  son  Johur  Jama  Khan, 
who  still  lives.  When  Beerbhoom  came  entirely  into  the  posses- 
sion of  the  English,  the  jail  was  of  mud,  thatched  with  straw ; 
but  on  May  15th,  1800,  a  brick  one  was  erected,  by  order  of  the 
Government,  under  the  superintendence  of  Mr.  Campbell.  Great 
encouragement  Avas  likewise  given  to  agriculture,  and  the  people 
made  rapid  advances  in  the  arts  of  civilisation. 

The  Rajahs  of  Beerbhoom  built  many  mosques  and  forts,  and 
dug  tanks.     The  most  of  these  are  now  in  ruin. 

In  the  year  1261  (a.d.  1854-55)  the  Santals  of  Beerbhoom 
rose  in  insurrection  against  the  English  ;  but  with  the  assistance 
of  the  Rajah  of  Burdwan  and  the  Commissioner  of  the  Burdwan 
Division,  Mr.  Elliot,  they  were  speedily  quelled.  By  order  of  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  of  Bengal,  Mahammed  Hamid,  a  Darogar, 
Golum  Alii  Khan,  Mir  Khan,  Sahib  Khan,  Sookh  Lall,  and 
Himat  AUi  Jamadar  were  rewarded  on  the  20th  January  1856. 

Beerbhoom  is  a  fertile  country.  Raj-Nagar  was  and  still  is 
famous  for  its  mangoes  and  preserved  fruits.  The  country  is 
watered  by  the  rivers  Aji,  the  More,  and  Bakeshwar.  The  ave- 
rage amount  of  land-tax  now  realized  is  about  6^  laks  of  rupees 
(i^65,ooo). 

(I  have  preserved  the  Bengali  spelling,  which  is  as  uncertain 
and  in  the  case  of  proper  names,  particularly  Muhammadan  ones, 
as  far  from  the  true  etymology  as  our  own  popular  rendering  of 
Indian  words.  Corrections,  whether  historical  or  geographical, 
have  been  left  for  another  volume.  The  true  dates  will  be  found 
in  The  Family  Book  of  the  Princes  in  Beerbhoom,  Appendix  F.) 


APPENDIX     E. 


THE  PANDIT'S  CHRONICLE  OF  BISHENPORE. 

The  following  is  an  abbreviation  of  a  Bengali  work  composed 
by  my  Pandit,  Nobin  Chandra  Bandopadya,  collated  with  a 
Persian  MS.  drawn  up  by  the  Rajah's  order  (for  which  I  am 
indebted  to  Mr.  George  Loch  of  the  Bengal  Civil  Service,  one  of 
the  Judges  of  Her  Majesty's  Supreme  Court  in  Bengal),  and  with 
other  papers  furnished  from  the  Rajah's  record-room. 

The  Chronicle. 

Raghu  Nath  Singh,  the  founder  of  the  dynasty  of  Bishenpore, 
derived  his  origin  from  the  kings  of  Jai  Nagar  near  Brindaban. 
The  story  of  his  parentage  is  as  follows.  The  king  of  Jai  Nagar 
being  seized  with  a  desire  to  visit  distant  countries,  set  out  for 
Purusatam,  and  on  his  way  thither  passed  through  Bishenpore. 
While  resting  at  one  of  the  halting-places  in  the  great  forest  of 
that  country,  his  wife  gave  birth  to  a  son  ;  and  the  king  foreseeing 
the  difficulties  of  carrying  a  child  with  him,  left  the  mother  and 
her  baby  behind  in  the  woods,  and  went  forward  on  his  journey. 
Such  barbarous  desertions  are  still  heard  of:  even  women,  when 
they  have  once  set  their  hearts  upon  pilgrimage,  become  merciless 
to  their  offspring,  and  abandon  any  child  they  may  happen  to 
give  birth  to  by  the  way. 

Soon  after  the  father  had  departed,  a  man  named  Sri  Kasmetia 
Bagdi  (an  aboriginal  inhabitant),  when  gathering  firewood,  passed 
by  the  halting-place,  and  saw  the  newly  born  child  lying  helpless 
and  alone.  The  mother  never  was  heard  of;  and  whether  she 
was  devoured  by  wild  beasts,  or  found  shelter  with  the  natives, 
remains  a  mystery  to  this  day.  The  woodman  took  the  infant 
home,  and  reared  him  till  he  reached  the  age  of  seven,  when  a 
certain  Brahman  of  the  place,  struck  with  his  beauty  and  the 
marks  of  royal  descent  that  were  visible  on  his  jierson,  took  him 


440  THE  PANDJrS  CHRONICLE        [Appx.  E. 

to  his  own  house.  (Observe  this  is  the  first  appearance  of  a 
resident  Aryan  in  the  legend  ;  and  he  is  not  a  conqueror,  but 
a  poor  colonist.)  The  Brahman,  however,  being  an  indigent 
person,  was  compelled  to  send  the  boy  out  to  tend  his  cows  and 
work  for  his  living ;  and  the  lad  so  grew  upon  the  affections  of 
the  Bagdis  (aborigines),  that  they  called  him  Raghu  Nath,  Lord 
Raghu,  and  supplied  him  with  food. 

One  day  in  particular  the  boy  attracted  the  notice  of  every- 
body by  his  beauty,  as  he  played  with  the  other  young  cowherds, 
while  the  elder  shepherds  looked  on.  The  fathers,  seeing  that 
the  day  was  wearing  on,  set  their  faces  homewards,  driving  their 
numerous  cattle  before  them.  On  the  way,  a  cow  belonging  to 
Raghu's  herd  strayed  from  the  rest,  and  the  boy  going  in  search 
of  her  into  the  thick  forest,  wandered  up  and  down,  looking  in  all 
directions,  but  in  vain,  till  at  last,  overcome  with  fatigue,  he  lay 
down  at  the  foot  of  a  tree.  No  sooner  had  he  fallen  asleep  than 
a  huge  cobra  glided  out  of  a  tuft  of  high  grass  ;  but  instead  of 
biting  the  lad,  gazed  stedfastly  on  him,  and  erecting  his  many- 
coloured  hood  above  the  sleeper's  face,  shaded  him  from  the 
rays  of  the  sun  (a  legend  told  of  many  successful  adventurers). 
His  adopted  parent  meanwhile  was  in  great  distress  about  his 
disappearance,  and  unable  to  bear  the  suspense  any  longer, 
started  in  search  of  him.  At  length  he  came  to  the  spot ;  but 
what  was  his  terror  when  he  beheld  the  deadly  snake,  with  hood 
erect,  as  if  in  the  act  to  strike  !  'Alas,  my  loved  one,'  he  cried, 
'  what  madness  tempted  me  to  send  thee  forth  to  thy  destruction  ?' 
Meanwhile  the  snake,  scared  by  his  approach,  and  quickly  contract- 
ing his  hood,  glided  off,  and  the  boy,  awakened  by  the  withdrawal 
of  the  shade,  started  up.  The  old  man  poured  forth  tears  of 
gratitude,  vowing  never  to  let  his  precious  child  go  forth  into  the 
forest  again.  'Ah,  what  would  I  have  done  had  I  lost  you?'  he 
exclaimed  ;  '  you  whom  I  cannot  bear  to  be  out  of  my  sight  for 
a  moment.  From  the  day  I  brought  you  to  my  house  with  only 
a  {q\\  worn  rags,  and  tended  by  the  Bagdis,  deep  and  unspeakable 
tenderness  sprung  up  in  my  heart  towards  you.  Your  beautiful 
face,  and  the  tears  rolling  down  your  little  cheeks,  will  never  be 
forgotten.'  As  upon  the  immeasurable  surface  of  the  ocean,  no 
fish  by  its  most  rapid  career  raises  a  single  ripple,  so  not  all  the 
swift  events  and  constant  changes  of  liie  can  disturb  the  calm  of 
true  aft'eclion. 


Appx.  E.]  of  BISHENPORR.  441 

One  (lay  the  boy  found  a  golden  ball  in  a  water-course,  and 
brought  it  to  his  master,  who  treasured  it  up  with  delight  as  a 
sign  of  the  future  greatness  of  his  child.  Soon  afterwards,  the 
king  (an  aboriginal  prince)  having  died,  his  obsequies  were  cele- 
brated with  great  pomp,  and  people  from  all  parts  went  to  the 
funeral  feast.  The  Brahman,  being  very  poor,  went  among  the 
rest,  taking  Raghu  with  him.  When  the  Brahman  was  in  the 
middle  of  his  repast,  the  late  king's  elephant  seized  Raghu  with 
his  trunk,  and  approached  the  empty  throne.  Great  was  the 
consternation  and  terror  lest  the  elephant  should  dash  the  boy 
to  pieces  ;  but  when  the  royal  animal  carefully  placed  the  lad  on 
the  throne,  the  whole  multitude,  thunderstruck  at  seeing  a  deed 
so  manifestly  done  by  the  will  of  God,  filled  the  place  with  their 
acclamations,  and  the  ministers  agreed  to  crown  the  boy  on  the 
spot.  So  they  made  him  king  of  the  country  ;  and  the  singers 
came  and  poured  forth  their  melodies,  the  musicians  played  on 
their  instruments,  and  the  minstrels  tuned  their  hai-ps,  and  recited 
the  wonderful  deed  that  had  been  done. 

For  this  was  the  custom  in  the  old  countries,  that  when  the 
king  died,  the  ministers  did  not  crown  the  legal  heir,  but  they 
made  the  king's  white  elephant,  attended  by  all  the  officers  of 
state,  and  covered  with  jewelled  trappings,  go  through  the  capital 
in  solemn  procession  ;  and  whomsoever  among  the  multitude  the 
elephant  lifted  on  to  its  back,  him  they  crowned,  saying  that  it 
was  the  act  of  God. 

The  ancients  give  other  examples  of  a  lad  rising  to  the  throne 
in  consequence  of  having  been  auspiciously  shaded  by  the  hood 
of  a  cobra.  For  instance,  a  certain  Brahman  had  in  his  house  a 
poor  boy,  who  tended  his  cattle.  One  day,  as  the  boy  lay  asleep 
'in  the  field,  a  hermit  passing  that  way  noticed  that  a  black  snake 
had  raised  its  hood  over  the  child's  face  to  shelter  him  from  the 
sun.  As  the  hermit  drew  near,  the  snake  fled,  and  the  boy, 
awakening,  shared  the  scanty  supply  of  rice  he  had  brought  out 
with  him  for  his  mid-day  meal  with  the  holy  man.  On  leaving, 
the  hermit  told  the  boy  he  would  one  day  be  a  king,  cautioning 
him,  at  the  same  time,  not  to  sleep  with  his  legs  crossed,  or  his 
face  looking  right  up  to  the  sun,  and  ordering  him  to  learn  the 
art  of  war,  and  to  accustom  himself  to  arms,  ^\■hen  next  the 
hermit  met  the  boy,  he  discovered  certain  marks,  which  foretell 
royally,  on  the  lad's  feet  \  and  asked  him  what  he  would  give  tn 


442  THE  PANDITS  CHRONICLE        [Appx.  E. 

a  hermit  by  whose  advice  he  should  reach  the  throne.  The  boy 
gladly  answered  that  he  would  give  anything  the  hermit  asked. 
So  the  hermit  told  him  how  to  begin  with  petty  depredations  on 
the  adjoining  chiefs,  and  by  degrees,  as  he  grew  stronger,  to  carry 
on  a  more  open  warfare,  until  he  had  reduced  all  that  part  of 
the  country.  The  hermit  never  took  his  eye  off  the  youth  ;  and 
whenever  he  disobeyed  any  precept,  the  holy  man  punished  him 
with  stripes.  In  process  of  time  the  boy  came  to  be  king  of  all 
the  country,  and  gave  the  hermit  a  lac  of  rupees,  with  the  town- 
ship and  lands  of  Chandpara  at  a  fixed  quit  rent,  whence  that 
township  is  styled  Chandpara  of  the  Fixed  Rent  to  this  day. 
(Several  other  instances  are  here  given,  which,  for  the  sake  of 
brevity,  may  be  omitted.) 

Raghu  Nath  Singh,  therefore,  was  the  first  king  of  Bishenpore 
{i.e.  the  first  king  of  Aryan  birth,  the  aboriginal  princes  going  for 
nothing  with  my  worthy  Pandit).  He  is  celebrated  in  history  as 
the  king  of  the  Bagdis  (aborigines),  and  was  the  first  of  a  race 
that  has  reigned  nearly  iioo  years.  He  founded  the  city  of 
Bishenpore,  guided  thither  by  auspicious  signs.  For  long  his 
kingdom  passed  under  the  name  of  Malabhumi  (the  land  of  the 
wrestlers),  then  as  the  jungle  mahals  (forest  country)  ;  it  is  now 
included  in  the  districts  of  Burdwan,  Bancorah,  and  Beerbhoom. 

Beerbhoom  is  known  as  a  place  for  heroes  and  Bagdis  (abori- 
ginal castes).  They  wore  long  black  hair,  and  generally  decorated 
themselves  with  iron  ornaments,  the  most  costly  being  of  silver, 
and  called  Balla.  For  arms  they  had  spears  and  javelins.  The 
kings  often  employed  them  as  guards  of  their  palaces,  owing  to 
their  skill  in  Avrestling.  They  also  joined  with  the  wild  tribes 
{i.e.  aboriginal  races  of  the  highlands)  in  committing  acts  of 
plunder,  and  thus  became  a  terror  to  the  more  peaceable  in- 
habitants. The  Nawab  of  Moorshedabad  occasionally  solicited 
their  assistance  in  time  of  war.  At  the  time  when  the  Nawab 
was  engaged  in  conflict  with  the  Marhattahs,  he  requested  his 
dependent  kings  to  give  him  every  support  in  their  power. 
Accordingly  the  Rajah  of  Bishenpore  despatched  a  band  of  his 
bravest  heroes  to  the  assistance  of  the  Nawab.  By  their  valour 
the  Marhattahs  Were  subdued,  and  from  that  time  the  Rajah  of 
Bishenpore  was  the  most  renowned  of  the  tributary  kings  of  the 
Nawab. 

The  history  of  the  kings  of  Bishenpore,  written  by  Raja  Gopal 


Appx.  E.]  of  BTSHENPORE.  443 

Sing,  was  found  in  the  Bancoorah  Collectorate..  Guided  by  the 
facts  contained  therein,  and  collecting  others  from  various  sources, 
I  proceed  to  give  a  chronicle  of  the  kings  of  Bishenpore.  One 
or  two  facts  connected  with  the  kings  and  their  country  may  be 
given  in  passing. 

The  kings  belonged  to  the  Kutumi  branch  of  the  Maharishi 
family.  Their  god  was  Acolong,  and  their  goddess  Pura,  of  the 
Ketti  caste.  The  kings  were  followers  of  Shambad  ;  the  high 
priest  or  Rishi  was  Bissa  Mitra ;  Brahmans  who  worshipped 
Vishnu  were  their  religious  guides.  The  sacred  verse  called 
Gatha,  which  the  kings  received  at  the  time  of  the  sacred  thread 
Paitta,  is  still  in  use.  Bishenpore  acquired  a  place  in  history 
from  the  time  of  Raja  Raghu  Nath  Sing,  whom  the  Bagdis 
(aborigines)  called  Raghu  Nath.  At  the  time  of  his  coronation 
he  was  termed  '  Original  Wrestler,'  or  Adi  Malta. 

1.  Original  Wrestler,  Adi  Malta. — The  Raja  was  born  in  122 
Bengali  era  (a.d.  715).^  He  received  a  mark  in  his  forehead 
from  other  kings,  that  is,  was  crowned  in  the  year  of  Bishen- 
pore I.  He  reigned  34  years.  His  queen  Chandra  Rumari  was 
the  daughter  of  Indra  Sing,  a  western  prince  of  Solar.  He  built 
a  temple  in  honour  of  the  goddess  Punta  Surri.  The  capital  was 
Laogram. 

2.  Raja  Jai  Malta. — This  prince  was  born  in  156  Bengali 
era  (a.d.  749),  and  was  crowned  in  the  year  of  Bishenpore  34. 
He  reigned  30  years,  and  died  in  64  Bishenpore  era.  His  queen 
was  the  daughter  of  Dinu  Sing,  a  prince  of  the  western  Solar  race. 
Raja  Jai  built  a  temple  in  honour  of  Sat  Chako  Bohari.  His 
Kamdar  (steward  and  chancellor)  was  Bhagi  Ratti  Gope,  who 
received  the  rents  of  the  country  of  the  Wrestlers.  The  king  left 
two  sons  :  the  elder  succeeded  him,  while  the  younger  was  pen- 
sioned. The  race  of  the  latter  is  now  extinct.  The  Raja  was  a 
powerful  monarch,  and  fond  of  pompous  display.  He  increased 
the  number  of  troops. 

3.  Raja  Ambliuchatla  {oiliernnse  Beni  Malta). — The  Raja  was 
born  in  Sangbat,  186  Bengali  era  (a.d.  779),  and  his  coronation 
took  place  in  the  year  of  Bishenpore  64.  He  reigned  12  years, 
and  died  in  76.      His  capital  was  Laogram.      He  married   Kan 

'  In  niatlcis  of  cliniuology  I  adopt  not  my  Pandit's  figures,  whicli  arc  often 
coiUradiclory,  l)ul  the  family  book  of  the  kings  of  Bishenpore,  and  other  I'ersian 
arcliivcs  of  ascertained  accuracy,  .so  far  as  dates  arc  concerned. — Be.  D.  A. 


444  '^^J^E  PANDITS  CHRONICLE        [Ai'i-x.  E. 

chan  Muni,  the  daughter  of  Mattiar  Sing,  a  western  king  of  Solar 
race.  His  Kamdar,  Bhagi  Ratti  Sing,  held  the  same  office  as 
under  the  former  king.  He  had  five  sons,  of  whom  the  eldest 
succeeded  him,  while  the  others  received  pensions.  No  descend- 
ants of  theirs  now  remain. 

[Thus  the  Pandit  goes  on  through  a  weary  list  of  kings,  all  of 
whom  married  ladies  of  Aryan  birth,  Kshatryan  princesses  from 
the  north,  and  most  of  whom  employed  Aryan  settlers  as  their 
stewards  and  ministers.  They  warred  with  the  adjoining  princes 
— for  the  most  part  aborigines,  but  some  of  them  rival  Aryan 
immigrants — built  temples,  principally  to  Aryan  divinities,  but 
occasionally  to  the  ghosts  of  celebrated  men,  according  to  the 
aboriginal  ideas  of  worship  ;  but  throughout  this  and  all  similar 
documents  that  I  have  examined,  the  importance  of  the  aboriginal 
element  and  the  frequency  of  its  mention  steadily  decline.  1 
give  an  example  here  and  there,  adopting  the  chronology  of  the 
family  book,  etc.,  instead  of  my  Pandit's.] 

1 8.  Raja  Jaggat  Alalia. — The  Raja  was  born  in  275  Bishen- 
pore  era  (a.d.  990),  crowned  in  318  (a.d.  1033),  and  died  in  336 
(a.d.  105  i).  Bishenpore  was  his  capital.  He  married  Chandra- 
batti,  daughter  of  Golunda  Sing.  In  the  earlier  part  of  his  reign 
he  erected  a  building  in  honour  of  Radha  Binod  Thakur,  and 
another  for  Rush  Mandip.  His  Kamdar  (steward)  was  Gopal 
Sing.  He  left  three  sons.  Bishenpore  was  the  most  renowned 
city  in  the  world,  and  it  became  more  beautiful  than  the  beautified 
house  of  Indra  in  heaven.  The  buildings  were  of  pure  white 
stone.  Within  the  walls  of  the  palace  were  theatres,  embellished 
rooms,  dwelling-houses,  and  dressing-rooms.  There  Avere  also 
houses  for  elephants,  barracks  for  soldiers,  stables,  storehouses, 
armouries,  a  treasury,  and  a  temple.  The  king  secured  fame  by 
adding  to  the  magnificence  of  the  city.  It  was  during  his  reign 
that  a  number  of  merchants  established  themselves  in  the  city. 

33.  Raja  Ram  Malla  {Khetra  Naih  Malla  ?). — The  Raja  was 
crowned  in  564  (a.d.  1277),  and  died  in  587  (a.d.  1300),  after  a 
reign  of  23  years.  His  consort  was  Sukumari  Bai,  daughter 
of  Nand  Lall  Sing.  In  his  reign  a  temple  was  built  to  the  god 
Radha  Kanta  Jin  (apparently  to  the  ghost  of  some  hero),  and  cost 
an  enormous  sum.  The  Kamdar  (steward)  was  Jagu  Mandhar 
Goho.  The  king  left  four  sons.  At  this  time  the  fort  was  im- 
proved, and  various  sorts  of  fire-engines  were  brought  into  it.     A 


Appx.  E.]  of  BISHENPORE.  445 

governor  was  appointed,  with  orders  to  prepare  uniform  for  the 
army.  The  soldiers  learned  the  use  of  arms  more  perfectly,  ami 
the  high  renown  they  bore  was  sufficient  to  strike  terror  even  into 
the  hearts  of  the  giant  race.  In  this  reign  no  foreign  prince 
ventured  to  attack  Bishenpore.^ 

48.  Raja  Birhambar. — He  was  born  in  868,  and  succeeded 
to  the  throne  in  881  Bishenpore  era  (a.d.  1596).  He  reigned  26 
years.  This  king  had  four  wives  and  twenty-two  sons.  Three 
temples  were  erected  in  his  reign.  The  fort  received  its  last  em- 
bellishment, and  guns  were  mounted  on  the  walls.  He  led.  his 
forces  against  the  Nawab  of  Moorshedabad  ;  but,  understanding 
that  he  was  the  Lord  Superior  of  the  country,  he  paid  167,000 
rupees  (^17,000)  as  tribute,  and  returned  to  his  capital.  His 
Kamdar  was  Durga  Prasand  Ghor. 

54.  Raja  Gopal  Singh. — This  prince  was  born  in  975  Bishen- 
pore era,  and  died  in  1055  (a.d.  1708),  after  a  reign  of  38  years. 
He  was  married  to  the  daughter  of  Raghunath  Tungu,  whose 
capital  was  Tungubhumi.  Five  temples  were  erected  in  his 
reign.  At  this  time  the  Marhattahs,  under  the  command  of 
Bhaskar  Pandit,  appeared  before  the  southern  gate  of  the  fort  of 
Bishenpore.  The  Raja  met  them  with  his  troops,  but  victory 
leaned  to  the  side  of  his  enemies.  By  the  favour  of  the  god 
Modan  Mohan,  it  is  said,  the  guns  were  fired  without  any  human 
assistance.  Among  the  slain  was  the  Marhattah  general.  The 
Bishenpore  troops  plundered  the  enemy,  and  retired  within  the 
fort.  Others  relate  that  the  king,  by  his  own  prowess,  slew  many 
of  the  opponents  ;  but,  failing  to  take  the  life  of  the  general,  he 
declined  a  second  battle,  and  fled  into  the  fort.  Upon  this  the 
Marhattas  renewed  the  attack,  but  were  effectually  repelled  by 
the  guns.  Maharajah  Kritti  Chund  Bahadur  of  Burdwan  also 
attacked  Bishenpore,  and  defeated  its  king,  but  soon  after  joined 
in  league  with  him  against  the  Marhattahs.  The  king  left  two 
sons,  of  whom  the  elder  succeeded  him.  Upon  the  younger 
was  bestowed  the  Jagir  of  Jamkundi,  which  possession  his  de- 
scendants still  retain. 

[Thus  the  chronicle  goes  on.     One  prince  digs  tanks  and  sets 

'  I  am  unable  to  identify  Ram  Malla  with  the  name  of  any  king  in  the 
chronolojjical  MSS.,  so  I  give  l\im  the  date  and  reign  of  the  thirty-third  king 
in  the  family  lists,  as  he  has  that  position  in  my  Pandit's  chronicle. — Be.  D.  A. 


446  THE  PANDITS  CHRONICLE.        [Appx.  E. 

up  idols,  often  representing  aboriginal  worship ;  anolher  en- 
courages trade ;  a  fourth  goes  to  war.  The  eldest  son,  if  living, 
succeeded  to  the  throne,  but  the  others  had  a  right  to  a  suitable 
provision.  The  Bishenpore  family  appears  sometimes  as  the 
enemy,  sometimes  as  the  ally,  and  sometimes  as  the  tributary, 
of  the  Mussulman  Nawab,  but  it  was  formally  exempted  from 
personal  attendance  at  the  court  of  Moorshedabad,  and  appeared, 
like  the  English  in  later  days,  by  a  representative  or  resident  at 
the  Durbar.  Of  several  princes  it  is  recorded  that  they  en- 
couraged trade,  and  that  strangers  settled  in  their  capital ;  one 
appointed  two  judges,  another  improved  the  fortifications  ;  and 
the  family  drop  the  patronymic  of  Wrestler  (one  of  the  last  relics 
of  ancient  aboriginal  influences),  and  take  that  of  Sing  after  the 
50th  lineal  prince  (922  Bishenpore  era,  a.d.  1637).  In  the  i8th 
century  the  family  rapidly  declined  ;  the  Marhattas  impoverished 
them;  the  famine  of  1770  left  their  kingdom  empty  of  inhabit- 
ants ;  and  the  English,  treating  these  tributary  princes  as  mere 
land-stewards,  added  to  their  public  burdens  at  pleasure,  and 
completed  their  ruin.  '  After  the  idol  Modan  Mohan,'  a  rem- 
nant of  aboriginal  worship,  '  was  removed  from  Bishenpore,  the 
city  began  to  fall  into  decay.  Owing  to  his  great  indigence,  the 
Raja  pawned  the  idol  to  Gokal  Chandra  Mittra  of  Calcutta. 
Some  time  after,  the  unfortunate  prince  with  great  difficulty 
managed  to  collect  the  amount  required  to  redeem  it,  and  sent 
his  minister  to  Calcutta  to  bring  home  the  pledge.  Gokal 
received  the  money,  but  refused  to  restore  the  idol.  The  case 
was  brought  before  the  Supreme  Court  at  Calcutta,  and  was 
decided  in  favour  of  the  Rajah  \  and  Gokal  caused  a  second 
idol  to  be  made,  exactly  resembling  the  original,  and  presented 
it  to  the  Rajah.'     Thus  ends  the  Pandit's  chronicle.] 


APPENDIX    F. 


THE   FAMILY    BOOK   OF   THE    PRINCES    OF 
BEERBHOOM. 

The  following  is  given  not  for  its  intrinsic  interest,  but  as  a 
specimen  of  the  chronological  archives  of  native  houses.  The 
original  is  a  Persian  MS.  obtained  from  the  Rajah's  dilapidated 
palace. 

The  Family  Book. 

This  is  the  family  book  of  the  Rajahs  of  Beerbhoom — setting 
forth  the  year  in  which  each  Rajah  ascended  the  throne,  how 
long  he  reigned,  in  what  place  he  dwelt,  and  of  what  disease  he 
died. 

isf.  Diwan  Ranmast  Khan  Bahadur  reigned  from  the  begin- 
ning of  Jeyt  1007  Bengal  era  (1600  a.d.)  to  ist  Kartik  1066 
Bengal  era  (a.d.  1659),  when  he  died  of  fever. 

2d.  Diwan  Kwajah  Kamal  Khan  Bahadur,  son  of  the  de- 
ceased, reigned  from  1066  Bengal  era  (a.d.  1659)  to  1104  b.e. 
(a.d.  1697),  and  died  of  fever.  His  body  was  buried  in  the  Great 
Flower  Garden.  He  reigned  thirty-eight  years,  four  months,  and 
thirteen  days. 

3^.  Diwan  Asd  Ulla  Khan,  son  of  Diwan  Kwajah,  reigned 
from  1 104  Bengal  era  (a.d.  1697)  to  1125  b.e.  (a.d.  17 18).  His 
reign  was  twenty-one  years,  one  month,  and  twenty  days.  He 
named  his  sons  Azim  Khan  and  Badyal  Zaman  Khan  his  heirs, 
and  died. 

4///.  Diwan  Badya  Al  Zaman  Khan  reigned  from  11 25  Bengal 
era  (a.d.  1718)  to  1158  d.e.  (a.d.  1751).  The  days  of  his  reign 
were  thirty-three  years.  He  named  his  four  sons,  Ahmad  al 
Zaman  Khan,  Mahamad  Ali  Naki  Khan,  Asd  al  Zaman  Khan, 
and  Bahadur  Al  Zaman  Khan,  his  heirs  ;  and  with  the  consent 
of  the  other  three,  raised  his  third  son,  Asd  Al  Zaman  Klian,  to 


448  THE  FAMILY  BOOK  OF  [Aj^px.  F. 

the  throne,  on  the  ist  Bysach  1159  b.e.  He  died  in  1178  b.e. 
His  body  was  buried  in  the  Flower  Garden. 

Ahmad  Al  Zuman  Khan,  eldest  son,  died  before  his  father's 
eyes  in  Rajnagar  on  the  15th  Magh  1169  Bengal  era  (a.d.  1762). 
His  body  was  buried  in  the  Great  Imam  Barah. 

Mahamad  Ali  Naki  Khan  Bahadur  died  21st  Phalgan  1171 
(a.d.  1764)  Bengal  era,  at  Rajnagar.  His  body  was  buried  side 
by  side  with  his  elder  brother  in  the  Great  Imam  Barah. 

^th.  Rajah  Mahamad  Asd  al  Zaman  Khan  Bahadur  reigned 
from  the  ist  Bysach  1159  Bengal  era  (a.d.  1752)  to  1184  b.e. 
(a.d.  1777).  In  1184,  having  gone  to  the  city  of  Calcutta,  in- 
habited by  many  noble  men,  he  fell  sick  of  callej,  and  died.  His 
body  was  carried  home  and  buried  in  the  Flower  Garden.  The 
days  of  his  reign  were  twenty-six  years.  [Callej  is  a  sort  of 
paralysis,  caused,  according  to  native  ideas,  by  a  bird  casting  his 
shadow  on  a  person.] 

(>th.  Mahamad  Bahadur  al  Zaman  Khan  reigned,  after  the 
death  of  his  brother,  from  the  beginning  of  1185  Bengal  era 
(a.d.  1778)  to  1 196  B.E.  (a.d.  1789).  The  days  of  his  reign 
were  twelve  years.  During  his  lifetime,  in  the  year  1193  b.e., 
he  made  his  little  son  sign  and  seal  all  papers  of  state,  and 
taught  his  son  all  the  duties  and  customs  of  a  prince.  In  1196, 
being  sick  of  dropsy  in  the  testicles,  in  his  country-house  at 
Haseinabad,  he  died.  His  body  was  borne  to  the  royal  city,  and 
laid  in  the  Flower  Garden. 

']th.  Rajah  Mahamad  al  Zaman  Khan  Bahadur,  on  the  death 
of  his  father,  being  a  minor,  succeeded.  He  performed  the 
offices  of  royalty,  and  sealed  and  signed  the  state  papers.  By 
reason  of  his  being  a  minor,  Mr.  Keating  was  Sarbarakar,  and 
Lai  Ram  Nath  was  Diwan.  In  1197  Bengal  era  (a.d.  1790) 
he  came  of  age,  and  obtained  a  sanad  from  the  Government  for 
the  kingdom  of  Beerbhoom.  The  days  of  his  reign  were  twelve 
years.  Being  sick  (of  Sanjar-Pota),  he  died  on  5th  Phalgun  1208 
B.E.  (a.d.  i8oi),  in  the  Palace  with  the  Twelve  Gates.  His 
body  was  buried  in  the  Great  Flower  Garden. 

8///.  Rajah  Mahamad  Daura  al  Zaman  Khan  reigned  in  the 
room  of  his  father  from  1209  Bengal  era  (a.d.  1802).  He  obtained 
a  sanad  of  the  kingdom  from  Government  in  1219  b.e.  (a.d.  181 2). 
Being  afflicted  with  Sanjar,  he  died  in  the  royal  city  on  17th 
Phalgun  1262   (1855).     He  named  his  son  Mahamad  Johar  al 


Appx.  F.]     the  princes  OF  BEERBHOOM.  449 

Zaman  Khan  and  Ram  Bakshan  his  wife  and  heirs.  His  body 
IS  buried  in  front  of  the  mosque  in  the  Market  Place  of  the 
royal  city. 

This  family  book  of  the  house  of  Nagar  was  copied  on  the 
28th  Magh  127 1  Bengal  era  (a.d.  1864),  on  Thursday  (Panch 
Shambah),  and  finished  at  9  a.m.  in  Soory,  according  to  order, 
by  Sheikh  Rahm  Baksh,  Mooktear  (my  Munshi). 

[I  have  found  it  impossible  to  adhere  to  a  uniform  system  of 
spelling,  as  many  places  have  now  acquired  an  official  ortho- 
graphy which  it  would  be  mere  pedantry  not  to  recognise  ;  thus, 
Bishenpore  for  Vishnupur,  etc.] 


VOL.  I.  2  F 


APPENDIX    G. 


SANTAL  TRADITIONS,  LITERALLY  TRANSLATED. 
I. — Formation  of  the  Earth. 

Of  old,  all  this  was  a  sea  ;  there  were  two  birds — a  drake  and 
a  duck.  They  were  brooding  above  (the  water).  Then  Marang 
Buru  (supposed  to  be  the  same  as  Siva  of  the  Hindus)  said, 
'  Where  shall  I  place  these  birds?'  He  said,  '  In  the  midst  of 
the  sea  there  is  a  lotus.'  Then  he  said,  '  Who  will  raise  up 
this  earth  ?  There  is  a  crab ;  go  ye  and  call  him.'  They  having 
called  the  crab,  he  came,  and  standing  by  Marang  Bum,  inquired, 
'  Why  have  you  called  me?'  'For  this  only:  could  you  raise 
up  this  earth?'  'O  yes;  if  you  command  me,  I  could  raise  it.' 
Then  the  crab,  taking  earth  in  his  claws,  and  raising  it  up,  the 
earth  all  washed  away.  Then  Marang  Buru  said,  '  This  fellow  can 
never  raise  this  earth.  Who  (else)  is  there  out  there?'  'There 
is  no  one  but  an  earth-worm-king.'  '  Go  ye,  then,  and  call 
him.'  They  having  called  the  earth-worm-king,  he  said,  '  Where- 
fore, O  Great  Lord,  (and)  Marang  Buru,  have  ye  called  me?' 
'  Oh,  nothing;  only,  could  you  raise  up  this  earth  here?'  'Yes, 
though  I  could  not  raise  it  alone.'  Then  the  Great  Lord  inquired 
of  him,  'Who  is  there  out  there?'  'No  one;  only  a  tortoise. 
If  he  would  take  me  on  his  head,  I  could  raise  up  the  earth.' 
'  Then  call  the  tortoise.' 

The  tortoise  coming,  said,  '  O  Great  Lord,  and  Marang  Buru, 
wherefore  have  ye  called  me?'  '  Nothing  ;  only,  could  you  take 
this  earth  on  your  head  here?'  '  Yes,  receiving  your  commands, 
I  could  raise  it ;  but  you  must  chain  my  four  feet  to  the  four 
corners  (of  the  earth) :  then  I  shall  be  able  to  raise  it.'  Then 
they  having  chained  him  (the  tortoise),  the  earth-worm-king  raised 
up  the  earth  on  the  leaf  of  the  lotus. 

Then  said  the  Great  Lord  to  Marang  Buru,  '  Go  }'e,  see,  and 
bring  us  word.'     Then  Marang  Buru,  descending,  came  and  saw, 


Appx.  G.]  SANTA L  TRADITIONS.  451 

and  tried  it  with  the  pressure  of  his  foot,  but  found  it  unsteady 
(floating).  Then  Marang  Buru,  returning  to  the  Great  Lord, 
said,  '  The  thing  is  this  :  it  is  unsteady  (floating).'  Then  the 
Great  Lord  said  to  him,  *  Then  go  thou  and  sow  the  seeds  of 
grass,  and  let  the  roots  take  fast  hold.' 

IL — The  First  Human  Pair. 

Then  was  produced  the  bena  (a  kind  of  coarse  grass).  On 
that  bena  the  drake  and  duck,  descending,  laid  their  eggs. 
Having  incubated,  they  hatched  out  two  persons  (a  brother  and 
sister). 

After  this  the  Great  Lord  inquired  of  Marang  Buru,  '  How  is 
it?'  Then  he  replied  to  him,  'Only  two  persons  are  born.' 
*  Well,  if  they  have  been  born,  let  them  remain  there.'  (Again) 
the  Great  Lord  said  to  Marang  Buru,  'Go,  look  at  them,  and 
bring  me  word.'  Then  Marang  Buru,  going,  saw  them,  and 
brought  word :  '  O  Great  Lord,  I  went  and  saw  them.  They 
have  grown  up,  but  are  destitute  of  clothing.' 

in. — Garments  Supplied. 

Then  the  Great  Lord  said,  *  O  Marang  Buru,  take  them  two 
cloths — one  of  ten  cubits,  and  one  of  twelve  cubits.'  Having 
taken  them  the  cloths,  they  inquired,  '  O  grandfather,  whither 
have  you  come  ?'  '  Hither,  O  grandson,  have  I  come  to  visit 
you.'  '  We  are  well.'  *  Then,  O  grandson,  put  on  this  cloth.' 
Then  he  gave  the  boy  the  ten-cubit  cloth,  and  the  girl  the  twelve- 
cubit  cloth.  Then  the  boy's  cloth  served  only  for  a  ropani  (the 
cloth  that  is  attached  before  and  behind  to  a  string  passing 
around  the  loins).  The  twelve-cubit  cloth  barely  covered  the 
girl's  loins. 

IV. — The  Preparation  of  Intoxicating  Liquor. 

Moreover,  the  Great  Lord  said  to  him,  '  O  Marang  Buru,  go 
and  see  those  two  persons.'  Then  Marang  Buru,  having  been 
and  seen  them,  said  to  them,  '  O  grandchildren,  I  have  a 
matter  to  tell  you  two.  WWX  ye  hear  me?'  'Yes,  O  grand- 
father ;  speak,  we  will  listen.'  '  It  is  this  :  I  give  to  you  two 
yeast.     Take  it,  and  put  it  into  a  hCimia  '  (earthen  pot).    '  Yes,  we 


452  SANTA L  TRADITIONS,  [Appx.  G. 

will  do  that.'  Then  they  prepared  the  hand  a ;  and  after  four 
days  he  came  (again)  to  see  them.  *  O  grandchildren,  have  you 
prepared  the  hd?ida,  as  I  told  you  at  that  time  ?'  '  Yes,  O  grand- 
father, we  have  put  the  hdnda  in  order.'  '  Then  show  me  what 
you  have  done.'  Then,  having  seen,  he  said  to  them,  '  O  grand- 
children, fill  ye  up  with  water'  (the  hdnda).  They  having  filled 
up  the  hdfida  with  water,  Marang  Bum  inquired  of  them,  '  O 
grandchildren,  have  you  supplied  the  water  ?  Then  make  cups 
of  leaves,  O  grandchildren  :  have  you  made  the  cups  ? '  '  Yes, 
O  grandfather,  we  have  made  the  cups.'  *  Then  bring  them.' 
They  {brought  them,  and)  said,  *  Take,  O  grandfather,  and  drink.' 
'  No,  O  grandson,  there  is  one  thing  to  be  done.'  They  then 
inquired,  'What  is  it?'  'First,  you  must  worship  (with  a  liba- 
tion) this  Marang  Buru '  {i.e.  me,  the  Marang  Buru). 

V, — The  Propagation  of  Children. 

Then  they  two,  having  worshipped  Marang  Buru,  he  said, 
'  Now,  drink  ye.'  They  said,  '  O  grandfather,  take  thou  and 
drink.'  '  No,  grandchildren,  take  ye  and  drink.'  Again  said 
Marang  Buru,  '  Drink  ye  ;  I  will  return  home.'  Then  they  two 
drank,  and  became  drunk.  After  that,  Marang  Buru  returning, 
saw  them  that  they  were  greatly  intoxicated.  This  one  was 
lying  in  one  place,  and  that  one  in  another  place.  Marang  Buru 
seeing  them  thus  lying  drunk,  drew  them  together.  Then  they 
two  lay  together  as  man  and  wife. 

The  next  day  Marang  Buru,  visiting  them  early  in  the 
morning,  saw  them  lying  together,  and  said,  '  Ho,  then,  O  grand- 
children, are  you  not  up  yet  ? '  '  Ah,  grandfather,  this  is  very 
bad.  You  made  us  very  drunk  yesterday.  Oh,  shame,  grand- 
father ;  but  so  it  is.     Now,  what  can  be  done  ?' 

Then,  remaining  there,  seven  sons  and  seven  daughters  were 
born  to  them  two.  After  a  time  they  were  driven  away  by  the 
Marja  Tudukko. 

VI. — The  Dispersion. 

'  Under  the  thom  bush  they  hid  me, 
Under  the  tall  grass  they  concealed  me.' 

Then,  being  unable  to  remain  longer  there,  they  took  them 
(their  children)  to  the  foot  of  Chae  Champa,  and  there  they 


Appx.  G.]         LITERALLY  TRANSLATED.  453 

remained.  Dwelling  there,  they  greatly  multiplied.  There  were 
(two  gates),  the  Ahin  gate  and  the  Bahini  gate,  to  the  fort  of 
Chae  Champa. 

Then  Pilchu-hanam  and  Pilchu-brudhi  (the  original  pair) 
divided  them  (their  posterity)  into  different  castes.  The  first-born 
became  Nijhasda-had  ;  after  him  was  Nij  Murmu-had  ;  after  him 
was  Nij  Saren-had  ;  after  him  was  Nijtati-jhari-has-da-had  ;  after 
him  was  Nijmarndi-had  ;  after  him  was  Nijkesku-had  \  and  after 
him  was  Nijtudu-had. 

Then  they  went  out  from  the  foot  of  Chae  Champa,  and, 
departing,  they  were  spread  abroad  and  scattered  in  Dugdarahed. 
From  these,  some  went  to  the  country  of  Sing  ;  others  went  to 
Sikar ;  others  to  Tundi ;  and  others  went  to  Katara.  Then 
others  went  and  departed  thence,  and  were  scattered  every- 
where. From  that  time  to  the  present,  men  have  gone  on  mul- 
tiplying in  the  world. 

[These  legends  were  collected  among  the  southern  Santals, 
and  forwarded  to  me  by  the  Baptist  missionary,  Mr.  Phillips. 
They  are  substantially  the  same  as  the  traditions  of  the  central 
Santals,  but  tht;  spelling  of  i)roper  names  is  slightly  different.] 


APPENDIX  H. 


A  SKELETON  SANTALI  GRAMMAR, 

Based  on  the  Rev.  J.  Phillips'  '  Intj-oduction  to  the  Santal  Lan- 
guage^ with  additions  frofn  other  Missionaries,  and  from  my 
own  resea?'ches. 

I.  Pronunciation. 

Santali  exhibits  a  peculiar  sharp  stop  occurring  sometimes  in 
the  middle,  but  more  frequently  at  the  end,  of  certain  words,  and 
caused  by  the  dropping  of  a  letter.  Thus  da,  *  water,'  with  an 
abrupt  jerk  between  it  and  the  next  word,  from  the  original  root 
dag,  '  water,'  as  shown  in  dag-ai,  '  it  will  rain.'  It  is  impossible 
to  describe  this  sound  accurately,  but  its  effect  is  generally  to 
produce  an  aspirate  breathing,  and  it  is  represented  by  Santal 
students  sometimes  by  !,  and  sometimes  by  the  Sanskrit  visarga 
(:),  to  which  it  bears  a  phonetic  resemblance. 

II.  Alphabet. 

Tlie  Bengali  alphabet  precisely  fits  Santali,  except  that  the 
compound  vowel  ri  in  Santali  has  only  the  simple  ri  sound, 
as  indeed  it  has  practically  in  low  Bengali.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  //. 

The  vowel  a  is  inherent  to  the  Santali  consonants,  except  in 
the  case  of  final  consonants,  and  in  a  few  words  even  to  the  latter 
class  :  thus  hard,  not  hdr,  'a  tortoise ;'  ddkd,  not  dak,  '  the  heart.' 

III.  Pronominals. 

(a.)  Inflectional  pronominals.  These  are  added  on  to  the 
root,  and  are  of  two  kinds  :  (i)  Those  that  form  true  compounds 
with  roots,  as  the  inflections  of  duality  and  plurality :  thus  ku/, 
'a tiger;'  dual,  hdkin ;  plural,  kulko.  Kulkin  and  kulko  become 
in  turn  the  base  to  which  the  case-endings  are  stuck  on.     (2)  The 


Api'x.  H.]     a  skeleton-  SANTALI  grammar.     455 

case-endings,  which,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  paradigm  of  the  noun, 
are  very  numerous,  and  which  are  in  fact  merely  postpositions,  not 
incorporated  with  the  root,  and  but  slightly  cohering  to  it. 


1st 

2d. 
3d. 


(/a)  The  Personal  Pronouns 

Singular. 
Ing,    /  (contracted 


Dual. 


for  a  ing). 
Am,  thou. 
Huni,  he,  she. 
Ona,  it. 


(Alang,  'u>e  t7c>o,  i.e.  you  and  /. 

(Aling,  we  tivo,  i.e.  //tf  and  /. 

Aben,  yoii  two. 

Hunkin,  |     .,       . 
r\  -y  ■       \    they  two. 
Onakin,  \        -^ 


Plural. 
Abe, 


Aban, 
Ape,  ye. 
Hunko,  I  ., 

onko,  V'^'y- 


The  possessives  are  formed  either  by  prefixing  /  to  the  simple 
pronouns,  or  by  adding  the  regular  genitive  case-endings  to  a 
compound  form  of  the  personal  pronouns  ;  thus  : 


Singular. 

1st.  Ting,  or  ai-rini,  my. 
2d.  Tarn,  akin-rini,  thy. 
3d.  Tai,  ake-rini,  his. 


Dual. 

Taling,  or  ai-ren-kin,  oj  us  t7uo. 
Taben,  akin-ren-kin,  of  you  two. 
Takin,  ake-ren-kin,  of  them  tzuo. 


Plural. 


1st.   Tale,  taben,  or  ai-ren-ko,  our. 
2d.    Tape,  akin-renko,  your. 
3d.    Tako,  ako-ren-ko,  their. 


(c.)  Demonstratives  : 

Huni,  uni,  hani,  hana,  bona,  una,  that, 
Nui,  nua,  nia,  this,  etc. 


(^.)  Pronominals  of  quantity  : 


Mih,  one. 

Tina,  some. 

Mi -mi, 

,  each. 

Nuna,  so  much. 

Eta,  other. 

Nase-nase,  some,  a  Utile. 

Ar,  ar- 

■ho,  more. 

moreover. 

Adhan,  half,  afnv. 

Chet,  : 

what? 

Amana,  wide,  mauy,  much. 

Chet-hong,  anytli 

ling. 

Joto,  all. 

Chet-leko,  hoza  ? 

Tin-tina,  how  much  ? 

The  Numerals : 

I,  Mih. 

20, 

Mfh-TsT. 

100,   Mih-s.ie. 

2,  Barea. 

40, 

Bar-isi. 

200,  Bar-sae. 

3.  Pea. 

60, 

Pe-isi. 

300,   Pe-sae. 

4,  Ponea. 

80, 

Pon-isi. 

400,   Pon-sae. 

5,   M.ane. 

100, 

Manc-isi 

i.                      500,  Mane-sae. 

6,   Turui. 

120, 

Turui -isi 

i.                      600,  TuruT  sae. 

7,   Eae. 

140, 

Kae-isi. 

700,   Eae -sae. 

8,  Iral. 

160, 

Iral-isi, 

800,   Iral -sae. 

9,   Are. 

180, 

Are-isi. 

900,   A  re -sae. 

10,  Gel. 

ZOO, 

Gel -isi. 

1000,  Gel -sae. 

456     A  SKELETON-  SANTA  LI  GRAMMAR.     [Appx.  H. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  up  to  200  the  notation  is  by  scores  ; 
the  numbers  between  10  and  20  are  formed  by  affixing  the  simple 
number  to  10;  thus:  gel-mih,  11 ;  gel-pea,  13,  etc. 


{e.)  Pronominals  of  Time  : 

Nit,  ftow. 

Telieng,  to-day. 

Hala,  yesterday. 

Mahander,  day  be/ore  yesterday. 

Onmahander,  three  days  ago. 

Gapa,  to-morro^o. 

Meang,  day  after  to-morrow. 

Enderai,  three  days  hence. 

Anga,  da-wn.     Setah,  7norning. 

Baskereda,  9  a.  m. 

Tikin,  noon. 

Tarasing,  '},p.m. 

Ayup,  reletting. 

{/. )  Pronominals  of  Place : 

Nante,  here  (proximate). 
Ante,  there  (intermediate). 
Hante,  hanare,  there  (remote). 
Jahangre,  -where. 
Samang,  in  front  of 

etc.  etc. 


Mih-ronga,  one  tnonth. 
Mih-serma,  one  year. 
Nes,  this  year. 
Kalom,  next  year. 
Satom,  two  years  hence. 
Pher-Satom,  three  years  hence. 
Din-Kalom,  last  year. 
Hal-Kalom,  last  year  but  one. 
Mahang-Kalom,  three  years  ago. 
Tis,  -when  ? 
Enang,  then  (past). 
Dhinang,  then  (future). 
Manang,  before. 


Bedhai,  all  round. 
No-parom,  this  side. 
An-parom,  that  side. 
Okakhon,  -whence. 
Udiingre,  outside. 
etc. 


For  fuller  lists,  see  the  Rev.  ]\Ir.  Phillips'  Introduction,  p.  54 
et  seq.  (Calcutta,  1854.) 


IV.  Roots. 
(^.)  Nouns   have   one   declension,    three   numbers — singular, 
dual,  and  plural — with  eight  cases  in  each.     Thus : 

Kul,  a  tiger. 


Singular  : 


Nom.  Kul. 

Gen.  Kul-rYnih,  renko,  rea,  renkin. 

Inst.  Kul-iate,  hatete. 

Dat.  Kul-then,  theh,  surate,  plied. 


Ace.  Kul,  same  as  nominative. 

Abl.  Kul-khon,  khonah,  thenkhon, 

Loc.  Kul -re,  talare. 

Voc.  Eho-kul. 


Dual,  Kulkin  ;  Plural,  Kulko — 
forming  inflections  by  means  of  the  same  postpositions  as  the 
singular.  Besides  the  postpositions  given  above,  there  are  many 
others.  Santali  makes  hardly  any  use  of  prepositions,  but  tacks 
the  particles  on  to  the  end  of  the  word  which  they  govern. 
Santali  is  devoid  of  abstract  nouns,  but  supplies  the  want  by  a 
free  use  of  the  neuter  form  of  the  verb ;  tlius,  instead  of  sajnng, 
*  The  English  statutes  are  just,'  a  Santal  would  say,  '  The  English 
have-ordained  (neuter  form)  is  just.' 


Appx.  H.]     A  SKELETON  SANTALI  GRAMMAR.     457 

{b)  Verbs. 

Mr.  Phillips  states  that  the  Santa!  verb  has  four  voices  (active, 
middle,  passive,  and  neuter) ;  five  moods  (indicative,  subjunctive, 
potential,  imperative,  and  infinitive) ;  nine  tenses  (the  fi.iture,  pre- 
sent, present  definite,  imperfect,  imperfect  definite,  perfect,  perfect 
definite,  pluperfect,  pluperfect  definite  ;  of  which  the  following 
paradigms  illustrate  five). 

The  Santa!  verb  has  three  numbers — singular,  dual,  and  plural. 

It  has  also  two  genders — common  {i.e.  masculine  or  feminine) 
and  neuter.  It  has  the  peculiarity  of  agreeing  in  number,  gender, 
and  person,  not  only  with  the  noun  that  governs  it,  but  with  the 
noun  it  governs  ;  part  of  the  verb  agreeing  with  the  former,  part 
with  the  latter,  in  the  nominative,  genitive,  dative,  and  accusative 
cases.  [Mr.  Puxley's  unpublished  researches  are  my  principal 
authority  for  this  part  of  the  grammar.] 

The  verb  'to  be'  is  irregular  in  Santali,  as  in  most  other 
languages ;  that  is  to  say,  several  verbs  arc  employed,  none  of 
which  has  survived  in  a  perfect  and  complete  form.  Mend  is 
used  in  the  present  tense,  thus : 

Indicative. 

Sitigtilar.  Dual.  Plural. 

1st.   Mcn-aing-jna,  I atn.  Men-alTiig-ya.  Men-ale-a. 

2d.    Men-ama,  thou  art.  Men-aben-a.  Men-ape-a. 

,,       j  Men-aia,  he  or  she  is.  nr        i  •  I  Men-ako-.a. 

7A-     1  Af      -I  -     ■/  ■  Wen-akiii-a.  \  s,-    -,   - 

•^        {  Men-ah-a,  //  is.  \  Mcii-ah-a. 

Subjunctive. 

1st.   Men-amg-klian,  Tf  I avt.  Mcn-aling-kli.nn.  Mcn-alc-khiin. 

2d.    Mcn-am-klian,  ^V//M<rt/-/.  Mcn-aben-khan.  MC-n-iipe-klian. 

3d.    Mcn-ai-klian,  If  he  is.  Men-akm-khan.  Mcn-ako-klian. 

Possessive  Form. 
Agreeing  in  number  and  person  with  the  nominative  and  genitive. 

1st.   Mcn-ah-ting-jna,  //  is  niiite. 

2d.    Men-aing-tama,  /  am  yours.  ^  Siug-ular. 

3(1.    Men-akin-taya,  Those  two  are  his. 

1st.  Mcn-ai-taling-ya,  //  belongs  to  us  tiuo. 

2d.    Men-ah-taben-a,  //  belongs  to  you  two.  \  Dual. 

3d.    Men-ale-takin-a,  It  belongs  to  them  two. 

1st.   Men-ako-talc-a,   Those  are  ours. 

2d.    Men-aling-t.ipc-ya,   IVe  two  are  yours.  \  Plural. 

3d.    Men-aV)cn-tako-a,   You  two  are  theirs. 


458     A  SKELETON  SANTALI  GRAMMAR.     [Appx.  II. 


The  other  tenses  of  the  substantive  verb  are  supplied   by 
taken,  remain  ;  thus  : 

Intransitive  verb,  Tahen,  retnain. 

Indicative  Mood. 


Singular. 
1st.   Tahen-aing. 
2(1.    Tahen-am. 
3d.   Tahen-ai. 


Future  Tense,  I  shall  remain. 
Dual. 
Tahen-aling. 
Tahen-abeii. 
Tahen-akin. 


1st.  Tahen -kan-ai. 

2d.  Tahen-kan-am. 

3d.  Tahen-kan-ai. 

1st.  Tahen-en-aing. 

2d.  Tahen-en-am. 

^d.  Tahen-en-ai. 


Present,  I  remain. 

Tahen -kan-aling. 
Tahen-kan-aben. 
Tahen-kan-akin. 

Imperfect,  I  remained. 
Tahen-en-aling. 
Tahen-en-aben. 
Tahen-en-akin. 


Plural. 
Tahen-ale. 
Tahen -ape. 
Tahen-ako. 


Tahen-kan-ale. 
Tahen-kan-ape. 
Tahen-kan-ako. 


Tahen-en-ale. 
Tahen-en-ape. 
Tahen-en-ako. 


The  numbers  and  persons  of  the  other  tenses  are  formed 
with  equal  regularity,  so  that  it  is  only  necessary  to  give  the  first 
person  singular,  dual,  and  plural  of  each  ;  thus  : 

Perfect,  I  have  remained. 
Singular.  Dual.  Plural. 

1st.  Tahen-akan-aing.  Tahen-akan-aling.  Tahen-akan-ale. 

Pluperfect,  I  had  remained. 
1st.  Tahen-len-aing.  Tahen-len-aling.  Tahen-len-ale. 

Subjunctive  Mood. 

Future  Tense,  /  }?iay  remain. 
1st.  Tahen-cho-ine.  Tahen-cho-ling. 


2d. 
.-,d. 


Tahen-chom. 
Tahen-cho-e. 


Tahen-cho-ben. 
Tahen-cho-kin. 


Tahen-cho-le. 
Tahen-cho-pe. 
Tahen-cho-ko. 


Present,  I/I  remain. 
1st.  Tahen-khan-eng.  Tahen -khan -aling.  Tahen-khan-ale. 

Imperfect,  Should  I  remain. 

1st.  Tahen-en-khan-eng.         Tahen-en-khan-aling.       Tahen-en-khan-ale. 

Perfect,  /  may  have  remained. 

1st.  Tahen-akan-khan-eng.    Tahen-akan-khan-aling.    Tahen-akan-khan-ale. 

Pluperfect,  /  might  have  remained. 

1st.  Tahen-len-khan-eng.        Tahen -len-khan -aling.      Tahen-len-khan-ale. 

Potential  Mood. 

/  coidd  have  remained. 
Singular.  Dual. 

1st.  Tahen-koh-aing.  Tahen-koh -aling. 


2d.    Tahen-koli-ara. 
3d.    Talien-koh-ai. 


Tahen-koh-aben. 
Tahen-koh -akin. 


Plural. 

Tahen-koh -ale. 

Tahen-koh -ape. 

Tahcn-koh-ako. 


Appx.  IL]     a  skeleton  SANTALI  grammar.     459 


Imperative  Mood. 

Singular.  Dual.  Plural. 

1st.  Tahen-ma-ing.  Tahen-ma-ling.  Tahcn-ma-le. 

2cl.    Tahen-me,  or  me-a.  Tahcn-ben,  or  bena.  Talien-pe,  or  pea. 

3d.    Tahen-ma-i.  Tahen-ma-kin.  Tahcn-ma-ko. 

Infinitive  Mood. 

Tahen-ate,  to  remain. 
Participles 

Present,  Tahcn-ka-te,  remaining. 
Past,  Tahen-en-klian,  having  remained. 

Gerunds. 

Tahen-en-te,       ) 

Tahcn-akan-te,  >  By  irmaining,  or  having  remained. 

Tahcn-len-te,      ) 

One  Other  paradigm  must  sufike.  In  the  intransitive  verb 
ta/ie>i,  we  have  exhibited  the  agreement  of  the  Santal  verb  with 
its  nominative  in  number  and  person ;  the  transitive  verb  dal, 
strike,  presents  the  agreement  in  number  and  person  with  the 
accusative  it  governs.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  root  of  the 
verb  comes  first,  then  the  accusative,  then  the  nominative.  As 
the  nominative  is  regular  throughout,  and  undergoes  no  phonetic 
change,  it  will  save  space  to  give  it  separately,  and  afterwards 
only  with  the  first  tense  of  the  indicative  and  subjunctive  moods, 
the  latter  of  which  uses  a  contracted  form. 

Nominative  case,  for  verbs,  in  the  Indicative  Mood  : 

Singular.  Dual.                                  Plural. 

1st.   ATng,  /.  Aling,  we  two.  Ale,  or  Aban,  we. 

2d.    Am,  thou.  Alien,  you  two.  Ape,  you. 

3d.    Ai,  he.  Akin,  they  tiuo.  Ako,  they. 

Nominative  Case,  Subjunctive  Mood  : 

1st.  Eng.  Leng.  Le  or  Ban. 

2d.    Em,  Ben.  Pe. 

3d.    E.  Kin.  Ko. 

Transitive  Verb,  Dal,  strike. — Indicative  Mood. 

Future  Tense. 

Singtdar. 

1st.   Dal-eng-jna-ai,  He  will  strike  me.^ 

2d.    Dal-me-aing,  I  wUl  strike  thee. 

3d.    Dal-e-am,  Thou  wilt  strike  him. 

1  Observe  tliat  tlic  person  and  number  of  the  verli  are  regulated  not  by  the 
nominative  governing  it,  but  by  the  accusative  governed  by  it. 


46o    A  SKELETON  SANTALI  GRAMMAR.     [Ai'px.  H. 


Dual. 

1st.  Dal-alinga-akin,  They  two  ivill  strike  us  two. 
2d.  Dal-abena-aling,  We  two  will  strike  you  two. 
3d.    Dal-akina-aben,  You  two  will  strike  them  two. 

Plural. 

1st.  Dal-alea-ako,  They  will  strike  us. 
2d.  Dal-apea-ale,  We  will  strike  you. 
3d.    Dal-akoa-ape,   You  will  strike  them. 

In  the  subsequent  tenses  of  the  indicative,  I  omit  the  nomina- 
tive pronoun. 

Present  Definite. 

Singular.  Dual. 

Dal-eh-line-kana,  tis  tivo. 


1st.  Dal-eng-kana,  is  striking  me. 
2d.    Dal-eh-me-kana,  is  striking  thci 
3d.    Dal-e-kana,  ts  striking  him. 


Dal-eh-ben-kana,  you  two. 
Dal-eh-kin-kana,  they  two. 


Plural. 

1st.   Dal-eh-le-kana,  is  striking  us. 
2d.    Dal-eh-pe-kana,  is  striking  you. 
3d.    Dal-eh-ko-kana,  is  striking  them. 
3d  person,  neuter,  Da-dal-kana,  is  striking  it  or  them. 


Singular. 


Present  Indefinite. 
Dual. 


1st.  Dal-ed-ing-jna,  strikes  me.  Dal-eh-liingya. 

2d.    Dal-eh-mea,  strikes  thee.'  Dal-eh-bena. 

3d.    Dal-ed-ea,  strikes  it.  Dal-eh-kina. 


Plural. 

Dal-eh-lea,  us. 
Dal-eh-pea,  you. 
Dal-eh-koa,  them. 


3d  person,  neuter,  Dal-e-da,  strikes  it  or  them. 

In  the  same  way  are  formed  the  numbers  and  persons  of  the 
remaining  tenses  of  the  indicative.  I  therefore  give  only  the  first 
person  of  each  : 

Imperfect. 


Singular. 
1st.   Dal-ked-ing-jna. 
Struck  me. 


1st.    Dal-akad-ing-jna. 
Has  stnick  me. 


1st. 


Dal-led-ing-jna. 
Had  struck  me. 


Dual. 
Dal-ket-lingya. 
Struck  us  two. 

Perfect. 

Dal-akat-lingya. 
Has  struck  us  two. 

Pluperfect. 

Dal-let-ling)'a. 
Had  struck  us  tiuo. 


Plural. 
Dal-ket-lea. 
Struck  us. 


Dal-akat-lea. 
Has  struck  us. 


Dal-let-lea. 
Had  struck  us. 


The  three  compound  past  tenses  are  regularly  formed  from 
the  simple  tense,  Avith  the  auxiliary  tahai,  to  be.     Thus : 

Imperfect  definite. — Dal-eh-me-taheng-kan-ai,  He  -cas  striking  thee. 

Perfect       definite. — Dal-akat-me-taheng-kan-ako,  77/<-i'  have  been  striking  thee. 

Pluperfect  definite. — Dal-lel-me-tahcng-k5n-aing,  I  had  been  striking  thee. 


Appx.  H.]    A  SKELETON  SANTALI  GRAMMAR.     46 1 


Subjunctive  Mood, 
Future  Tense,  with  the  nominatives  affixed. 

Singular. 

1st.   Dal-eng-cho-e,  He  may  strike  me. 
2d.    Dal-me-cho-eng,  /  7)tay  strike  thee. 
3d.    Dal-e-cho-em,    Yoic  may  strike  him. 

Dual. 

1st.  Dal-aling-cho-km,  They  two  may  strike  us  tzvo. 
2d.  Dal-aben-cho-leng,  IVe  two  may  strike  you  t-wo. 
3d.    Dal-akln-cho-ben,   You  two  may  strike  them  two. 

Plural. 

1st.  Dal-ale-cho-ko,  They  may  strike  us. 
2d.  Dal-ape-cho-le,  We  may  strike  you. 
3d.    Dal-ako-cho-pe,   You  may  strike  them. 

3d  person  neuter — Dal-cho-e,  He  may  strike  it,  or  them. 
Present,  if  (he,  eta)  struck,  without  the  nominative  expressed. 


Singular. 

1st.  Dal-eng-khan. 
2d.  Dal-me-khan. 
3d.    Dal-e-khan. 


Dual. 

Dal-alTng-khan. 
Dal-aben-khan. 
Dal-akin-khan. 


Plural. 

Dal-ape-khan. 
Dal-ale-khan. 
Dal-ako-khan. 


Imperfect,  if  (he,  etc.)  struck,  nominative  not  expressed. 
1st.   Dal-ked-ing-khan.  Dal-ket-ling-khan.  Dal-ket-le-klian. 

Perfect,  nominative  not  expressed. 
1st.  Dal-akad-ing-khan.  Dal-akat-ling-khan.  Dal-akat-lc-khan. 

Pluperfect,  nominative  not  expressed. 
1st.   Dal-ling-khan.  Dal-le-ling-khan.  Dal-lc-Ie-khan. 

Potential  Mood. 
Nominative  not  expressed. 


Singular. 
1st.   Dal-king-jna, 
2d.    Dal-ke-ma. 
3d.    Dal-ke-a. 


Singular. 
Dal-eng-me. 
Strike  me. 


Dual. 
Dal-ke-ling)a. 
Dal-ke-bena. 
Dal-ke-kina. 

Imperative  Mood. 

Dual. 
Dal-ko-ben. 
You  two  strike  them. 


Plural. 
Dal-ke-Iea. 
Dal-ke-peii. 
Dal-ke-koa. 


Plural. 
Dal-pe. 
Do  ye  strike  it. 


Infinitive  Mood. 
Da-dal-ate,  to  strike  it.  Dal-ko-tc,  to  strike  them. 

Participles. 

Dal-ka-te,  striking. 
Dal-kct-klian,  having  struck. 


402     A  SKELETON  SANTALI  GRAMMAR.     [Appx.  H. 


Gerunds. 

Dal-ket-te,     ) 

Dal-akat-te,  >  By  striking,  etc. 

I)al-let-te,      ) 

The  reflective  verb  (or  middle  voice)  is  formed  by  conjugating 
the  active  verb  with  the  inflections  of  the  intransitive  verb,  as 
exhibited  in  tahc/i,  p.  458.  In  the  future  and  present  tenses, 
oh  is  inserted  between  the  root  and  the  inflection  ;  thus : 

Future,  Dal-oh-aing,  I  shall  strike  myself. 
Pres.  def.,  Dal-oh-kan-aing,  I  am  striking  myself. 
Imperfect,  Dal-en-aing,  I  struck  myself. 
Perfect,  Dal-akan-aing,  I  liave  struck  myself. 

The  rest  of  the  middle  voice  is  formed,  like  the  imperfect  and 
perfect  tenses,  by  the  addition  of  the  inflections  of  the  intran- 
sitive verb. 

The  causal  verb  is  obtained  by  inserting  oc/io  or  ho-cho  im- 
mediately after  the  root,  and  using  the  inflections  of  the  transitive 
verb,  as  shown  in  dal  (p.  460)  \  thus  : 

Future,  Dal-ocho-me-aing,  I  shall  cause  thee  to  be  beaten. 
Present,  Dal-ocho-eh-me-kan-aing,  I  cause  thee  to  be  beaten. 
Impcjfect,  Dal-ocho-ket-me-aing,  I  caused  thee  to  be  beaten. 
Perfect,  Dal-ocho-akat-me-aing,  I  have  caused  you  to  be  beaten. 

And  SO  on  throughout  the  other  moods  and  tenses. 

The  foregoing  will  suffice  to  show  the  general  character  of 
Santali,  and  to  fix  its  place  among  languages.  Mr.  Phillips' 
Introduction  exhibits,  in  Bengali  characters,  its  forms  at  greater 
length ;  and  I  hope  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Puxley  may  be  induced 
at  no  distant  date  to  publish  the  more  complete  and  scientific 
grammar  for  which  he  has  been  collecting  materials  during  many 
years.  To  both  of  those  gentlemen  I  beg  once  more  to  ac- 
knowledge my  obligations. 


APPENDIX    I. 


TEN  SANTAL  FESTIVALS. 

1.  Johorai — after  gathering  in  the  December  rice-harvest ; 
lasts  five  days  in  each  village,  but  is  generally  protracted  to  a 
month,  by  fixing  different  days  for  it  in  neighbouring  villages. 
The  ceremony  is  simple.  An  egg  is  placed  on  the  ground  ;  all 
the  cows  of  the  village  are  driven  near  to  it,  and  the  animal  that 
first  smells  at  the  egg  is  honoured  by  having  its  horns  rubbed 
with  oil. 

2.  Sakrat — a  few  days  after  the  Johorai ;  lasts  two  days.  It 
consists  of  practising  with  bows  and  arrows,  performing  the  sword 
dance,  and  similar  sports. 

3.  Jdird — about  February  ;  lasts  two  days.  Eight  men  sit 
on  chairs ;  are  swung  round  the  two  posts  placed  outside  of  every 
Santal  village.  The  same  sort  of  revolving  swing  as  is  set  up  for 
the  children  in  English  fairs. 

4.  Bahd  ('flower') — about  March;  lasts  two  days.  Every  house 
washes  the  Naikki's  (priest's)  feet,  and  he  distributes  flowers  in 
return.  Ceremonies  take  place  in  the  grove  of  trees  outside  each 
village.  Four  chickens  are  offered  to  Marang  Buru  (the  great 
god  of  the  Santals)  ;  one  coloured  chicken  to  Jahir-era  (the 
primeval  mother  of  the  race) ;  one  black  chicken  to  Gosain-era 
(a  female  divinity  residing,  like  Jahir-erd,  in  the  Sal  grove) ;  and 
a  goat  or  chicken  to  the  Manjhi  Haram  (the  late  head  of  the 
village). 

5.  Pbtd  (hook-swinging) ;  now  stopped  by  Government,  but 
still  practised  (1865)  among  the  northern  Santals  in  April  or  May. 
Lasted  about  one  month.  Young  men  used  to  swing  with  hooks 
through  their  back,  as  in  the  Charak  Pujd  of  the  Hindus.  The 
swingers  used  to  fast  the  day  preceding  and  the  day  following  the 
operation,  and  to  sleep  the  intermediate  night  on  thorns. 

6.  Ero-sim  (sowing  chicken)  ;  oftered  in  each  house  at  seed- 
sowing  time. 


464  TEN  SANTAL  FESTIVALS.  [Appx.  I. 

7.  Hariar-sim  (green  chicken) ;  offered  by  the  Naikki  (priest) 
when  the  dhan  has  somewhat  grown. 

8.  Chhdtd  ('umbrella') — about  August;  lasts  five  days.  The 
Ndikki  (priest)  offers  a  goat,  and  the  people  all  dance  round  a 
bamboo  umbrella  erected  on  a  high  pole. 

9.  Iri-gtindli  (two  kinds  of  grain).  The  Ndikki  (priest)  offers 
these  with  milk  in  the  Jahir-than  (Sal  grove),  and  calls  upon  the 
poor  to  come  and  eat. 

10.  Horo  (rice) — when  the  rice  is  ripening.  The  first-fruits  of 
the  rice  are  offered  to  the  Pargana  Bonga  (the  district  deities), 
along  with  a  pig,  which  the  men  of  the  village  afterwards  eat  in 
the  Sal  grove. 

In  all  these  festivals  there  is  a  great  quantity  of  rice-beer 
drunk. 


APPENDIX    K. 


A  FEW  OFFICIAL  PAPERS  ON  THE  SANTAL 
INSURRECTION. 

No.  I. — General  Inst  met iotis  to  the  Civil  Officers.     Despatch  No. 
i']?>6,/roin  the  Government  of  Bengal,  dated  ^oth  July  1S55. 

Sir, — You  will  have  been  made  aware,  before  this  communica- 
tion reaches  you,  that  Major-General  Lloyd  has  been  appointed 
to  take  command  of  the  whole  of  the  troops  operating  against  the 
Santals. 

2d.  General  Lloyd  has  been  directed  by  the  Supreme  Govern- 
ment to  proceed  in  the  first  instance  to  Rajmehal.  He  has  been 
informed  that  the  President  in  Council,  considering  it  very  desir- 
able that  prompt  and  speedy  measures  should  be  taken  to  put 
down  the  insurrection,  has  resolved  upon  placing  the  conduct  of 
the  operations  entirely  in  his  hand;  and  he  has  been  requested  to 
take  immediate  steps  for  dispersing  and  capturing  the  insurgents, 
and  for  putting  down  the  rebellion. 

3^.  In  communicating  these  orders  to  this  Government,  the 
.  President  in  Council  has  requested  that  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
would  instruct  the  civil  officers  of  the  several  divisions  to  com- 
municate with  the  Major-General,  and  to  afford  him  every  in- 
formation and  assistance  in  carrying  into  effect  the  line  of 
operations  he  may  decide  upon. 

/\.th.  In  a  subsequent  communication,  the  President  in  Council 
has  explained  that  it  was  not  intended  by  the  above-quoted  in- 
structions to  General  Lloyd,  that  the  military  should  act  indepen- 
dently of  the  civil  power  against  our  own  subjects,  but  simply 
that  the  nature  of  the  military  operations  necessary  for  dispersing 
and  capturing  the  insurgents,  and  for  putting  down  the  rebellion, 
should  be  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  military  commanders.  It 
is  stated  also  that  the  civil  authorities  have  still  power  to  act  with 
the  civil  means  at  their  disposal,  and  that  the  only  change  in- 
tended to  be  made  is  in  transferring  the  power  each  civil  officer 

VOL.   I.  2  G 


466  A  F£]V  OFFICIAL  PAPERS         [Appx.  K. 

had  over  the  movements  of  the  troops  to  a  miHtary  officer  of 
experience,  who,  as  far  as  the  miHtary  are  concerned,  is  charged 
with  the  operations  necessary  for  queUing  the  insurrection.  The 
President  in  Council  considers,  it  is  added,  that  the  civil  autho- 
rities should  abstain  from  ordering  out  troops  except  in  cases  of 
sudden  emergency,  but  that  they  should  keep  the  military  officers, 
particularly  the  officer  in  command  in  the  district,  fully  informed 
on  all  points  connected  with  the  state  of  the  country  and  the 
movements  of  the  rebels,  and  ofter  such  suggestions  as  may  occur 
to  them  connected  with  the  general  objects  in  view. 

5///.  Since  General  Lloyd's  appointment  it  has  also  seemed 
desirable  to  the  President  in  Council  to  appoint  Colonel  Bird, 
with  the  position  of  a  brigadier,  to  the  special  command  of  the 
troops  employed  in  Beerbhoom  and  Bancoorah  districts.  This 
officer  is  instructed  to  take  immediate  measures,  in  concert  wdth 
the  civil  officers,  for  dispersing  and  capturing  the  insurgents  wher- 
ever they  may  be,  and  for  putting  down  the  rebellion.  He  is  in- 
formed tliat  Mr.  Loch  at  Munglepore,  and  yourself  at  Sooree,  will 
aftbrd  him  every  information  and  assistance  ;  and  he  is  requested 
to  act  in  concert  with  ]\Ir.  Loch  and  yourself  in  carrying  out  the 
line  of  operations  necessary  io  suppress  the  insurrection. 

6//;.  The  Lieutenant-Governor  has  only  to  add  to  the  above 
instructions  the  expression  of  earnest  hope  that  you  yourself,  and 
all  the  civil  officers  subordinate  to  you,  will  in  ever}'  possible  way 
aid-  and  promote  the  operations  of  the  troops.  Your  attention 
should  more  particularly  be  directed  to  procuring  efficient  and 
trustworthy  guides  for  the  troops,  and  to  providing  them  with 
carriage  and  supplies.  Orders  have  some  days  since  been  issued 
to  the  magistrates  of  all  the  surrounding  districts,  urging  them 
to  procure  as  many  elephants  as  possible,  and  forward  them  into 
Beerbhoom  and  Bhaugulpore ;  and  (a  number)  have  already 
been  sent  up  direct  from  Calcutta.  Also,  as  soon  as  it  shall  be 
dk-ected  at  what  places  detachments  of  troops  are  to  be  posted, 
you  shotdd  see  that  every  exertion  is  made  to  afford  good  shelter 
both  for  officers  and  men ;  and  special  care  should  be  taken  to 
provide,  as  early  as  possible,  charpoys,  or  some  elevated  plat- 
forms for  the  Sepoys  to  lie  upon,  (This  paragraph  is  carelessly 
copied.     W.  W.  H.) 

7///.  You  should  likewise — if,  as  may  be  possible,  the  medical 
arrangements  are  not  yet  efficiently  organized — take  it  upon  your- 


Appx.  K.]      on  the  SANTA L  INSURRECTION.       467 

self  to  see  that  the  officer  in  command  of  every  detached  body 
of  troops  is  furnished  with  a  few  simple  medicines,  particularly 
quinine,  with  brief  instructions  as  to  the  quantities  to  be  given. 

Zth.  The  Lieutenant-Governor  is  desirous  to  receive  reports 
from  you  of  the  progress  of  affairs  as  frequently  as  possible. 

()th.  You  will  communicate  the  above  orders  to  the  several 
officers  subordinate  to  you  who  are  employed  in  the  disturbed 
districts. 

No.  II. — Instructions  from  the  Commissioner  to  Magistrates  to 
oj^er  Pardon,  dated  i^th  August  1855. 

Sir,—  ...... 

2d.  You  will  be  good  enough  to  promulgate  amongst  the 
Santal  population,  by  every  means  in  your  power,  copies  of  the 
enclosed  proclamation ;  and  the  name  of  every  one  appearing 
before  you  to  make  submission  should  be  entered  in  a  book 
exhibiting  the  following  particulars.     (A  schedule  enclosed.) 

2)d.  To  all  who  tender  their  submission  a  certificate  in  the 
accompanying  form  should  be  given,  and  the  accompanying 
Moochoolika  {i.e.  bond)  sliould  be  signed  by  them. 

No.  III. —  T/ic  Proclamation  of  Pardon. 

Inasmuch  as  it  appears  that  amongst  the  Santals,  who  have 
risen  in  rebellion  against  the  Government,  plundering  and  de- 
vastating the  country  and  opposing  the  troops,  there  are  many 
who  see  the  folly  and  iniquity  of  their  proceedings,  and  are 
desirous  of  being  pardoned  and  resuming  their  former  quiet  life, 
notice  is  hereby  given,  that  the  Ciovernmcnt,  ever  anxious  for 
the  welfare  of  its  subjects  though  led  away  by  counsels  of  bad 
men,  will  freely  pardon  all  Santals  who  may  within  ten  days 
appear  before  any  constituted  authority  and  tender  their  submis- 
sion, always  excepting  those  who  .shall  be  proved  to  have  been 
principal  instigators  and  leaders  of  the  insurrection,  and  those 
who  shall  be  proved  to  have  been  principally  concerned  in  the 
perpetration  of  any  murder.  As  soon  as  complete  submission  is 
shown,  all  well-grounded  complaints  preferred  by  the  Santals  will 
be  fully  inquired  into.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  all  insurgents 
remaining  in  opposition  to  Government  after  the  issue  of  this 
proclamation,  will  be  visited  with  the  promptest  and  severest 
punishniL'nt. 


468  A  FEW  OFFICIAL  PAPERS  [Appx.  K. 

No.  IV. — Letter  from  the  Magistrate  of  Beerbhootn  to  the  Commis- 
sioner of  Biirdwan  Division,  dated  2a,th  September  1855. 

During  the  past  fortnight,  upwards  of  thirty  villages  have 
been  plundered  and  burned  by  the  insurgents  in  Thannas  Oper- 
bundah  and  Nangoolea.  The  whole  of  the  country,  from  Lorojore, 
four  miles  west  of  Nuggur,  to  within  a  short  distance  of  Deoghur, 
is  in  their  hands.  The  Dawks  (mails)  are  stopped,  and  the  inha- 
bitants have  deserted  their  villages,  and  fled.  They  are  divided 
into  tAvo  large  bodies  :  one  encamped  at  Raksadangal,  ten  miles 
north  of  the  Operbandah  Thannah  in  Zillah  Bhaugalpore  ;  and 
the  other  at  Teelaboonie,  six  miles  west  of  Soory,  and  also  in 
Bhaugalpore,  but  on  the  confines  of  Tannah  Nangoolea ;  and 
their  numbers  average,  as  nearly  as  we  can  ascertain,  from  12,000 
to  14,000,  and  are  receiving  augmentations  from  all  quarters. 

2d.  A  party  of  about  3000  of  the  Raksadangal  Santals,  led 
by  Mocheea  Kosnjola,  Rama  and  Soondra  Manjhees,  encamped 
near  Operbandah  on  the  afternoon  of  the  i6th  inst.,  and  on  the 
following  day  plundered  and  burnt  the  Thannah  and  Aillage. 
The  Darogah  and  Burkundazes  remained  at  their  post  till  the 
last  moment  ;  but  seeing  the  overwhelming  numbers  of  their 
assailants,  and  that  resistance  on  their  part  must  be  useless,  they 
retreated,  and  the  Darogah  contrived  to  escape  wdth  great  diffi- 
culty via  Shahna  and  Afzulpore,  and  arrived  here  on  the  2  2d 
with  only  the  clothes  on  his  back.  He  had  heard  some  days 
before  that  the  Santals  intended  attacking  the  Thannah,  and  had 
sent  all  the  records,  etc.,  to  Deoghur  for  security,  and  also  ap- 
plied to  the  officer  commanding  the  detachment  there  for  assist- 
ance ;  but  the  latter,  owing  to  the  distance  and  dense  jungle  en 
route,  declined  to  send  troops  to  his  aid.  On  informing  Mr. 
Ward  of  the  circumstances,  he  told  me  that  detachments  of  troops 
were  to  be  sent  forthwith  from  Raneegunge  to  Jumterra  in 
Thannah  Shahna,  to  Operbandah,  and  to  Afzulpore,  to  be  sta- 
tioned there  until  the  military  force  can  take  the  field  against  the 
Santals  after  the  rains  are  over ;  and  I  have  just  heard  that  the 
detachment  has  arrived  at  the  former  place,  which  will  suffice  for 
the  protection  of  Thannah  Shahna,  in  the  jurisdiction  of  which 
no  plunder  has  yet  been  committed  ;  but  the  Santals  are  now 
assembling  wdth  the  intention  of  joining  the  rebels.  Until  troops 
are  stationed  at  Operbandha,  everything  must  remain  in  the  pre- 


Appx.  K.]     on  the  SANTA L  INSURRECTION       469 

sent  state  of  anarchy  and  confusion  ;  but  directly  they  arrive,  I 
shall  send  the  police  back  to  the  Thannah,  and  set  the  Dawk 
(mail)  going  again.  At  present  it  is  iriipossible,  as  Rama  Manjhee, 
with  200  men,  has  taken  up  his  position  in  the  jungle  near  Haldi- 
gurh  Hill,  and  waylays  and  phmders  everything  that  attempts  to 
pass  that  way.  The  absence  of  a  civil  officer  at  Deoghur  is 
greatly  to  be  regretted  at  the  present  juncture,  when  his  services 
would  be  of  so  much  value  ;  but  I  have  already  brought  this  to 
your  notice  in  a  former  letter. 

2,(1.  The  gang  of  from  5000  to  7000  Santals,  under  Seeroo 
Manjhee,  who  had  taken  Sooleah  Takoor  at  Teelabooney,  have 
strengthened  their  position  by  earthworks,  and  dug  tanks  there. 
They  have  also  made  preparations  for  celebrating  the  Doorgah 
Pooja,  for  which  purpose  they  have  carried  off  and  detained  two 
Brahmins  from  one  of  the  villages  plundered  by  them  in  Thannah 
Nangoolea  ;  and  spies  who  came  in  yesterday  say  that  they  are 
only  waiting  for  the  Raksadangal  gang  to  join  them,  before 
advancing  to  attack  Soory ;  but  I  think  it  improbable  that  they 
will  venture  to  attack  the  station  under  present  circumstances. 
They  sent  us  in  what  is  called  in  their  language  a  *  dahra,'  or 
'missive' — viz.  a  twig  of  the  Sal  tree  with  three  leaves  on  it,  each 
leaf  signifying  a  day  that  is  to  elapse  before  their  arrival — a  few 
days  ago,  which  was  brought  by  one  of  the  Deoghur  Dak  runners, 
whom  they  seized  and  sent  back  for  the  purpose.  The  colonel 
commanding  has  taken  the  precaution  of  stationing  piquets  at 
different  points  on  the  north  and  west  side  of  the  station,  which 
would  be  most  e.xposed  in  the  event  of  an  attack  ;  and  I  under- 
stand that  Seyt  Gillan  and  his  Burkundazes,  whom  I  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  the  special  Commissioner  when  here,  at  the 
latter's  request,  is  to  be  sent  to  Nuggur,  where  the  residents  are 
in  a  state  of  great  alarm,  and  many  have  deserted  their  houses. 

No.  V. — From  the  Civil  Officer  to  the  Collector  of  Beerbhoom, 
Raneeguiige,  the  iT^th  November  1855. 

Sir, — Martial  law  having  been  proclaimed  in  the  disturbed 
districts,  my  functions  have  ceased.  Should  you  wish  to  com- 
municate with  me  on  any  subject  connected  witli  this  insurrection, 
which  might  re(iuire  to  be  settled  as  having  originated  in  this 
office,  I  shall  feel  obliged  by  your  doing  so  as  soon  as  possible, 
directing  to  me  at  Hooghly. 


APPENDIX    L. 


REVENUE  OF  THE  UNITED  DISTRICT,  AND  COST 
OF  INTERNAL  ADMINISTRATION,  BEFORE  THE 
PERMANENT  SETTLEMENT. 

Revenue,  1789. 

Current  Rupees. 

Land  Revenue  of  Beerbhoom,  ....  611,321 
Land  Revenue  of  Bishenpore,  ....  386,707 
Miscellaneous  Revenue,   .....  15,000 


Total  Current  Rs.,         1,013,028 
Or,  ^101,302,  i6s. 


Expenditure,  17S9. 

Sicca  Rupees. 

General  Charges  for  collecting  and  remitting  the  Revenue,  ")    33,020 

Collector's  Private  Commission,  .  .  .  .  )    10,900 

Civil  Justice,  ......  6,772 

Criminal  Justice,  including  Rs.  400  for  killing  tigers  ; 

Rs.  400  for  prisoners'  diet ;  and  Rs.  36  for  charity,  .  3,000 


Total  Sicca  Rs.,         52,692 
About  ^5400  stg. 

1789. 

Receipts,    ......     ^101,302  16    o 

Cost  of  Administration,     ....  5,4oo    o    o 


Net  profit  to  Government,         .       ;^95,902   16     o 


APPENDIX    M. 


THE  PRESENT  REVENUE  OF  THE  DISTRICT,  AND 
COST  OF  ITS  ADMINISTRATION.' 


Receipts. 
1864-65. 


Rupees. 

Land  revenue,    . 

7,44.965 

Fines, 

4,500 

Fees, 

600 

Excise, 

45,929 

Sale  proceeds  of  opium, 

7,018 

Income  tax. 

32,412 

Sale  of  stamps,  . 

71,685 

Receipt  stamps. 

406 

Penalties    for    infringement 

of  stamp  laws. 

3-300 

Collections       of      resumed 

police  lands,  , 

2,500 

Total, 

• 

9,13,315 

Education  department, 

. 

3,100 

Post-office  department. 

• 

7,200 

Grand  total, 

9,23,615 

or;^92,36i 

10 

0 

Deduct  expenditure. 

2,48,691 

or  ^^24,869 

2 

0 

Net  profit. 

6,74,924 

or;^67,492     8    o 


Charges. 
1864-65. 


Total, 


Rupees. 


Value  of  stamps  refunded,  . 

2,000 

Income  tax  refunded. 

500 

Charges  for  remitting  trea- 

sure,     including      boxes 

covered      with      canvas, 

packing,  etc., 

1,500 

Charges  for  destruction   of 

wild  animals,  . 

100 

Travelling      allowance      of 

oflicers,  etc.,  . 

500 

CoUectorate  charges,  . 

35.508 

Excise  do., 

2.776 

Income  tax  do. , 

2,706 

Charges  for  Stamp  depart- 

ment,     .... 

2,600 

Charges  of  Judges'  Court,  . 

71,000 

Charges      of      Magistrates' 

Court,    .... 

30,200 

Jail  charges. 

7,000 

Salary  of  the  civil  surgeon. 

4,200 

Dispensary     allowance     of 

do.,         .... 

120 

Pensions,    .... 

5.634 

Political  pensions. 

347 

Police  department. 

62,000 

Education  department. 

10,000 

Post-office  department, 

10,000 

or  ;/;'24,869     2    o 


2,48,691 


'  This  exhibits  the  estimated  revenue  and  government  expenditure  in  Becr- 
bhoom  alone,  Bishenpore  being  now  included  in  another  district. 


APPENDIX    N. 


A  TABLE  SHOWING  the  intrinsic  Value  of  the  following 
Species  of  Rupees  current  in  Bengal,  Bahar,  and 
Orissa,  compared  with  the  Sicca  Rupee,  from  Assayes 
BY  THE  Calcutta  Mint  in  October  1792. 


Species  of  Rupee. 


II. 
12. 

13- 

14. 

15- 
16. 

17- 
18. 

19- 
20. 
21. 
22. 

23- 
24. 

25- 

26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 
30- 
31- 
32- 


Siccas  of  Moorshedabad,  per  Sicca  weight,         .     100 
Siccas  of  Patna,        ....... 

Siccas  of  Dacca,       ....... 

Pholy  Sonats,  ........ 

Delhi  Mahomet  Shai,         ...... 

Money  Surat,  large,  ...... 

Benares  Sicca,  ....... 

Bissun  Arcot,    ........ 

Sonats  Sabic,  ........ 

Sonats  Duckie,         ....... 

Forshee  Arcots,         ....... 

French  Arcots,  ....... 

Patanea  Arcots,         ....... 

Aurungzebe  Arcots,  ...... 

Gursaul,  ........ 

Madras  Arcots,  new,         ...... 

Muslipatam  Arcots,  ...... 

Shardar  Arcots,        ....... 

Patna  Sonatts,  old,  ....... 

Benares  Rupees,  old,         ...... 

Madras  Arcots,  old,  ...... 

Furruckabad  Rupees,        ...... 

Jehanjee  Arcots,        ....... 

Chunta  Arcots,  ....... 

Calcutta  Arcots,        ....... 

Moorshedabad  Arcots,      ...... 

Old  Arcots, 

Dutch  Arcots,  ....... 

Surat  Arcots,    ........ 

Benares  Frisolie,       ....... 

Viziery  Rupees,         ....... 

Narrany  half  rupee, 


Intrinsic  Value, 

compared  with 

the  Sicca  Rupees. 

RS.        A. 

p. 

100      0 

0 

100      0 

0 

100      0 

0 

100     0 

0 

99    8 

0 

99    8 

0 

99    8 

0 

97  14 

6 

97    8 

0 

97    8 

0 

97    6 

6 

97    0 

0 

96    9 

6 

96    9 

6 

96    9 

6 

96    4 

9 

96    0 

0 

96    0 

0 

96    0 

0 

95  14 

6 

95  14 

6 

95  12 

9 

95  " 

3 

95  11 

3 

95    6 

6 

95    6 

6 

95    3 

3 

95    0 

0 

94    0 

0 

92    6 

6 

63    0 

0 

63    0 

0 

APPENDIX    O. 


LIST  OF  COINS  AND  WEIGHTS  CURRENT  IN  SIX 
INDIAN  PORTS  IN   1763. 

[For  Bengal  Coins,  see  Appendix  N.] 

MADRAS. 

Gold  and  Silver  Weights. 

I  Pagoda  is 

9t;V  do.  is      . 

8  do.,  I  dollar  weight, 

100  dollars,  . 

100  Venetian  ducats, 

100  gubbcrs,  at  a  medium, 

I  rupee, 

100  do., 

I    Madras  pagoda  weighs  2  dw.  4J  gr. ;  or,    English  standard,  20 

car.  *j*  gr. ;  country  touch,  85  ;  China,  865. 
I   Allumgeet  pagoda,    i   dw.  22  gr.  ;  or,  English  standard,   23  car. 

25  gr.  ;  country  touch,  9I  ;  China,  98|. 
80  cash  make  i  fanam. 

36  fanams,  i  pagoda-poise.     2  dw.  4  gr.  is  8625  matts  fine. 
100  Madras  rupees  weight,  37  oz.  5  dw.  20  gr.,  and  are  better  than 

standard,  14^  dw. 
100  Bombay  do.  are  better  than  standard,  \o\  dw. 


oz. 

dw. 

gr.  Troy 

0 

2 

4T^o^a 

I 

0 

0 

0 

17 

14 

.       88 

I 

17 

II 

0 

5 

10 

'7 

12 

0 

7 

1 1 

•       37 

5 

20 

S  U  R  A  T. 
Gold  and  Silver  ll'eii'/i/s. 


I  Chowlc  is  I  rutta. 
3  rutta  make  i  vol!,  . 
32  veil  make  i  tola,  . 
82. J  do.  make  2  tolas  and  iSJ  voUs,  or 
VOL.    T. 


or 


dw.  gr.  Troy. 

o  o  555 

0  7  1.%', 

1  o  o 
2  II 


474 


LIST  OF  COINS  AND   WEIGHTS.     [Appx.  O. 


<^\  vol!  =  I  Venetian  weight,  .  . 

loo  do.  =  28  tola  29  vol],     .... 
73  voll  =  I  dollar  weight,     .... 
100  do.  weight,  228  tola  4  voll, 
31  tola  =  very  near  .  .  .  . 

The  seer  for  coral  :=  18  great  pice,  or  27  common 
pice  weight,         ..... 
Do.  for  musk,  ..... 

The  Surat  seer  =  30  pice,  and  weighs  at  a  medium, 


I  Spanish  dollar  full  weight,  73  volls, 

100  do.  do., 

100  ounces  Mexico  dollars  are 

4  pice  make    . 

16  annas,  or  64  pice,  make    . 

13I  silver  rupees  are  equal  to 


pz. 

dw.    gr.  Tr.jy. 

0 

2 

Sh 

II 

14 

22 

0 

17 

18 

83 

15 

0 

12 

0 

0 

12 

5 

20 

1 1 

0 

0 

13 

12 

0 

liipees.  Annas.   Pice 

2 

3 

0 

219 

12 

9 

247 

I 

0 

anna. 

0 

I 

rupee 

silver 

I 

rupee 

gold. 

I  Venetian  = 

I  gubber  =     . 

I  gold  moor  or  rupee, 

100  rees  make 

400  do.  make 


BOMBAY. 

Coins. 


pee 

s.  Annas. 

Pice 

3 

14 

0 

3 

12 

6 

13 

I 

8 
quarter. 

0 

I 

rupee. 

80  Leader  rees  are 
S  tangos. 


GO  A. 

Coins. 


I  silver  tango. 

I  pardao  or  xeraphin. 


MALACCA. 
Gold  Weiglits. 

16  Miams  make  i  boucall,  equal  to  troy  weight, 
20  boucalls  make  i  catty, 


oz.     dw. 

I       9 
29     16 


p. 

18/3 
o 


Coins. 


4  Doits  = 
6  stivers, 


I  stiver. 
I  skilling. 


Appx.  O.]      list  of  coins  AND   WEIGHTS. 


475 


8  skillings,       ..... 

I  duccatoon  is  current  for      . 

I  English  crown  piece,  .  .  . 

I  Bombay  or  Surat  rupee, 

I   Madras  rupee  (though  of  the  value  with  ) 

Bombay),  .  .  .  .    f 

I  Arcot  rupee  (though  but  i  per  cent,  worse  ) 

than  Surat),  .  .  .  .    ) 


I  rix  dollar 
13  skillings. 
10      do. 

;      do. 


o-   \   ^', 


Because    they 

arc     not     so 

broad  as  the 

ombay     or 

Surat  rupee. 


CALLICUTT    AND    TELLICHERRY. 

Coins. 

16  Tarr  or  viss  make  .  .  .         i  fanam,  called  gallee. 

5  fanams  make  .  .  .  .         i  rupee. 

I  Spanish  dollar  full  weight  is  accounted  2\  rupees,  but  pass  in  the 
bazaar  only  from  10  fananis,  4  tarr  to  10^  fanams. 


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